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Psalm 139
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
1 O LORD, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I'm far away.
3 You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, LORD.
5 You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand
7 I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave,* you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me,* O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can't even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!
Free will is the option to live life contrary to what God intended. But have no doubt he chose you, not the opposite. So living life against his will is not satisfying. Which means that life circumstances, allowed by our Father will draw us close to him. And wnen you are close to him you will want to be in his Will,nad following the plan he has for your life. Jeremiah 29:11.
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
1 O LORD, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I'm far away.
3 You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, LORD.
5 You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand
7 I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave,* you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me,* O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can't even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!
Free will is the option to live life contrary to what God intended. But have no doubt he chose you, not the opposite. So living life against his will is not satisfying. Which means that life circumstances, allowed by our Father will draw us close to him. And wnen you are close to him you will want to be in his Will,nad following the plan he has for your life. Jeremiah 29:11.
C
Yes. This is where all the "schools" come in.
Libertarians are not simply incompatibilists, they also deny determinism. And most, but not all, compatibilists affirm that determinism is the case (sometimes those who are compatibilists but not determinists distinguish this by referring to those who affirm both as soft-determinists).
As far as the Christian side of the debate is concerned, God's foreknowledge is one of the oldest arguments in favor of determinism.
But then I guess we would have to consider what exactly "determinism" means. David Lewis, who is a compatibilist that does not believe determinism is true, says an event is "determined" when the past state of affairs in conjunction with the laws of nature make a future event accidentally necessary. Accidental necessity basically you can think of as not logically necessary, in that there is no law of logic which necessitates things being the way they are.
There may be different kinds of determinism. Some forms are a sort of mechanistic brand in which everything is determined by physical processes. The Christian brand of determinism denies this mechanistic sort, we are not determined by our genes or the laws of nature (although these may be contributing factors to who we are, the choices we make, and the situations we find ourselves in).
I already explained the post that I referenced earlier why God's foreknowledge seems to indicate a determinist state of affairs.
Well I'm not going to lay out the whole debate here. Libertarians basically want to say PAP (cf my earlier post) and ultimate sourcehood. Compatibilists basically say the ability to choose according to one's strongest inclination without external constraint (coercion) or abnormal internal constraint (like having Tourette's syndrome). Other forms of compatibilism talk more about hierarchical theories of motivation, in which a person's second order desires align with their first order desires (cf. Harry Frankfurt).
Rather, in compatibilist terms, it would look like this: you may have the will to choose many different things, but there will always be one thing which you desire above all others. That's the choice you will make. Rather than saying "we never really had a choice to pick anything else" you might say "we never really had the desire (or the will) to choose anything else."
Compatibilists will affirm that you could have made a contrary choice *if* you had wanted to, all things being equal. In other words, in order for you to make the contrary choice something must be different in the prior state of affairs up to the moment of choice (hence the presence of the hypothetical). Recall that in the earlier post (52?) I mentioned that libertarians must affirm that a contrary choice can be made even in the exact same state of affairs up to the moment of choice.
Libertarians are not simply incompatibilists, they also deny determinism. And most, but not all, compatibilists affirm that determinism is the case (sometimes those who are compatibilists but not determinists distinguish this by referring to those who affirm both as soft-determinists).
As far as the Christian side of the debate is concerned, God's foreknowledge is one of the oldest arguments in favor of determinism.
But then I guess we would have to consider what exactly "determinism" means. David Lewis, who is a compatibilist that does not believe determinism is true, says an event is "determined" when the past state of affairs in conjunction with the laws of nature make a future event accidentally necessary. Accidental necessity basically you can think of as not logically necessary, in that there is no law of logic which necessitates things being the way they are.
There may be different kinds of determinism. Some forms are a sort of mechanistic brand in which everything is determined by physical processes. The Christian brand of determinism denies this mechanistic sort, we are not determined by our genes or the laws of nature (although these may be contributing factors to who we are, the choices we make, and the situations we find ourselves in).
I already explained the post that I referenced earlier why God's foreknowledge seems to indicate a determinist state of affairs.
Well I'm not going to lay out the whole debate here. Libertarians basically want to say PAP (cf my earlier post) and ultimate sourcehood. Compatibilists basically say the ability to choose according to one's strongest inclination without external constraint (coercion) or abnormal internal constraint (like having Tourette's syndrome). Other forms of compatibilism talk more about hierarchical theories of motivation, in which a person's second order desires align with their first order desires (cf. Harry Frankfurt).
Rather, in compatibilist terms, it would look like this: you may have the will to choose many different things, but there will always be one thing which you desire above all others. That's the choice you will make. Rather than saying "we never really had a choice to pick anything else" you might say "we never really had the desire (or the will) to choose anything else."
Compatibilists will affirm that you could have made a contrary choice *if* you had wanted to, all things being equal. In other words, in order for you to make the contrary choice something must be different in the prior state of affairs up to the moment of choice (hence the presence of the hypothetical). Recall that in the earlier post (52?) I mentioned that libertarians must affirm that a contrary choice can be made even in the exact same state of affairs up to the moment of choice.
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C
Let me try to explain more clearly how this flushes out with Calvinism.
Why is the charge usually made that Calvinists don't believe in "free will"? Calvinists believe that a person must have a special work of God (regeneration) if they are to come to Christ in faith.
Non-Calvinists will usually look at this (and/or other premises of Calvinism) and say "So you don't think all persons can come to Christ if they wanted to?"
Technically, this wouldn't be correct. All persons can come to Christ if they want to. But, according to Calvinism, no man wants to (or is willing to) come to Christ apart from the effectual work of God (see for example John 6:44).
Calvinism maintains that a person's desires and, subsequently, choices are determined by their nature (see for example Matthew 12:33 and following). The sinful nature of unregenerate man will never of its own accord produce the godly desire or result in the godly choice to submit to Christ.
All men are free to choose according to their desires, but no one chooses what his nature will be. After all, what exactly would be doing the choosing if there is no essential person already present to do the choosing? What would such a choice be based on, if not on the nature of the individual?
Of course, the choices we make throughout life may further develop our nature's potential, but it does not create it ex-nihilo. For example, think of the seed of an oak tree. The seed has the potential to develop more fully into an oak tree, but it did not, at some point in the process, decide that it would have the nature of an oak tree rather than a palm tree. It did not choose to have the potential of an oak tree; rather, the potential was present due to the pre-existing nature of the seed.
Likewise, a person with a sinful nature may make choices which more fully develop that sinful nature (or may actualize their nature's potential), but there was never a point at which there was some nebulous "person" without an essence (and without any potential) that for no reason at all decided to become sinful rather than righteous. After all, if such a choice was made then it wouldn't qualify as a free choice because it would be an irrational and arbitrary choice, but persons who make irrational and arbitrary choices aren't free, they are crazy. But if it was made on the basis of some reason then presumably it was determined by that reason which itself must be grounded in the nature of the individual.
This is the sense in which Calvinists believe a man is free. It is a freedom that is more "limited" than the libertarian idea of freedom, but then we maintain that the libertarian idea of freedom doesn't even make sense, it's incoherent. Our freedom isn't an autonomous freedom, but so what? When I meet the man that chose to be born a human rather than a monkey then maybe I'll grant that he has autonomous freedom and the freedom to choose his own nature (and then I'll grant that the leopard can change his spots and the ethiopian his skin).
Why is the charge usually made that Calvinists don't believe in "free will"? Calvinists believe that a person must have a special work of God (regeneration) if they are to come to Christ in faith.
Non-Calvinists will usually look at this (and/or other premises of Calvinism) and say "So you don't think all persons can come to Christ if they wanted to?"
Technically, this wouldn't be correct. All persons can come to Christ if they want to. But, according to Calvinism, no man wants to (or is willing to) come to Christ apart from the effectual work of God (see for example John 6:44).
Calvinism maintains that a person's desires and, subsequently, choices are determined by their nature (see for example Matthew 12:33 and following). The sinful nature of unregenerate man will never of its own accord produce the godly desire or result in the godly choice to submit to Christ.
All men are free to choose according to their desires, but no one chooses what his nature will be. After all, what exactly would be doing the choosing if there is no essential person already present to do the choosing? What would such a choice be based on, if not on the nature of the individual?
Of course, the choices we make throughout life may further develop our nature's potential, but it does not create it ex-nihilo. For example, think of the seed of an oak tree. The seed has the potential to develop more fully into an oak tree, but it did not, at some point in the process, decide that it would have the nature of an oak tree rather than a palm tree. It did not choose to have the potential of an oak tree; rather, the potential was present due to the pre-existing nature of the seed.
Likewise, a person with a sinful nature may make choices which more fully develop that sinful nature (or may actualize their nature's potential), but there was never a point at which there was some nebulous "person" without an essence (and without any potential) that for no reason at all decided to become sinful rather than righteous. After all, if such a choice was made then it wouldn't qualify as a free choice because it would be an irrational and arbitrary choice, but persons who make irrational and arbitrary choices aren't free, they are crazy. But if it was made on the basis of some reason then presumably it was determined by that reason which itself must be grounded in the nature of the individual.
This is the sense in which Calvinists believe a man is free. It is a freedom that is more "limited" than the libertarian idea of freedom, but then we maintain that the libertarian idea of freedom doesn't even make sense, it's incoherent. Our freedom isn't an autonomous freedom, but so what? When I meet the man that chose to be born a human rather than a monkey then maybe I'll grant that he has autonomous freedom and the freedom to choose his own nature (and then I'll grant that the leopard can change his spots and the ethiopian his skin).
L
The way I learned it was that determinism means every event has a cause, and indeterminism means that at least 1 event did not have a cause. So, going all the way back to God, nothing happened that caused Him to come into being. He just was. He is that one thing that had no cause, so it theoretically makes things indeterministic.
This isn't really a subject I've devoted much time into studying. Learned about it one day in Logic, and then we moved on. It seems, though, that this soft-determinism you speak of is akin to indeterminism.
Question though. By "we are not determined by our genes or the laws of nature," you're not talking physically, right? I mean, determinists don't try to deny things like "blue eyed parents make blue eyed baby"?
This PAP thing is kinda necessary for logic, though, isn't it? It helps determine if a situation is true or false. If you cannot imagine an alternate outcome for a situation, then you know it to be true. Going with your Jones illustration, he could have bought chocolate ice-cream by mistake if he had a chance to buy ice-cream again. Or maybe he would have bought mint ice-cream, and given it to a little girl outside the shop who had no money. Until he buys the ice-cream, you can't say with certainty what he is going to get, because the event hasn't occurred yet. You can make a logical guess based on his prior actions and the history of Jones, but you'll never know until he actually has a vanilla ice-cream in his hand if he will truly get it.
That's a wee bit like asking libertarians to prove a negative, isn't it? One can hypothesize that it is possible for a different choice to have been made if given the chance again, but it is impossible to prove this unless one is able to create a time machine and allow a person to make the decision once again.
In any case, what you're saying seems like something most people would mostly agree with, whether compatibilists or not. I mean, I don't agree with "we never really had the desire to choose anything else" because people do quite often have the desire to choose something else, but their desire for the thing they want overrides that desire for the other option.
I don't know. I guess maybe I believe in some sort of soft-determinism or something. lol I should research this.
This isn't really a subject I've devoted much time into studying. Learned about it one day in Logic, and then we moved on. It seems, though, that this soft-determinism you speak of is akin to indeterminism.
Question though. By "we are not determined by our genes or the laws of nature," you're not talking physically, right? I mean, determinists don't try to deny things like "blue eyed parents make blue eyed baby"?
This PAP thing is kinda necessary for logic, though, isn't it? It helps determine if a situation is true or false. If you cannot imagine an alternate outcome for a situation, then you know it to be true. Going with your Jones illustration, he could have bought chocolate ice-cream by mistake if he had a chance to buy ice-cream again. Or maybe he would have bought mint ice-cream, and given it to a little girl outside the shop who had no money. Until he buys the ice-cream, you can't say with certainty what he is going to get, because the event hasn't occurred yet. You can make a logical guess based on his prior actions and the history of Jones, but you'll never know until he actually has a vanilla ice-cream in his hand if he will truly get it.
That's a wee bit like asking libertarians to prove a negative, isn't it? One can hypothesize that it is possible for a different choice to have been made if given the chance again, but it is impossible to prove this unless one is able to create a time machine and allow a person to make the decision once again.
In any case, what you're saying seems like something most people would mostly agree with, whether compatibilists or not. I mean, I don't agree with "we never really had the desire to choose anything else" because people do quite often have the desire to choose something else, but their desire for the thing they want overrides that desire for the other option.
I don't know. I guess maybe I believe in some sort of soft-determinism or something. lol I should research this.
L
this would be the U in tulip?
This belief would predestine everyone to be bad, wicked people, wouldn't it? If every person is born to be evil, then by what factor could they possibly turn out good? Unless they had the choice to be a good person.
So it's a "limited" freedom, instead of no free will at all that Calvinists believe in?
...I haven't believed whole-heartedly in free will for a while now, because it just doesn't seem possible any way you look at it, but the idea of a complete lack of free will doesn't really make sense to me either. And I kinda get what you're saying (it's alot of words to get after one read), but I can't say that I either completely agree or disagree with it.
This belief would predestine everyone to be bad, wicked people, wouldn't it? If every person is born to be evil, then by what factor could they possibly turn out good? Unless they had the choice to be a good person.
So it's a "limited" freedom, instead of no free will at all that Calvinists believe in?
...I haven't believed whole-heartedly in free will for a while now, because it just doesn't seem possible any way you look at it, but the idea of a complete lack of free will doesn't really make sense to me either. And I kinda get what you're saying (it's alot of words to get after one read), but I can't say that I either completely agree or disagree with it.
C
What you're describing is a physicalistic or causal determinism. This isn't the way it's framed within the metaphysical debates about free will.
I think the philosopher David Lewis, who I mentioned earlier, gives a standard definition of determinism relevant to the debate:
Notice that both of these philosophers deny determinism (Lewis says "I myself am a compatibilist but no determinist…" (ibid 291)), so they aren't trying to give a biased definition. And neither of these definitions go all the way back to a first cause.
But drawing it back to a first cause which is indetermined is not sufficient to rule out all subsequent event's being determined. If the first cause is such that it determines all subsequent events then it seems sufficient to say that determinism is the case.
Now, if you want to simply stipulate that "determinism" can only apply to an event in which even the first cause (or the entire causal chain) is determined (or say causal determinism is the only thing properly called determinism) then that is fine, but I can just propose a new term, call it "determinism-light," and claim that this is the case in which God's first act (or even all of his acts) are undetermined but that all of our acts are determined.
In fact, this is how many determinists (or more properly soft-determinists) that are Christian frame the issue. Paul Helm and many others (myself included) say that God's "freedom" is sui generis. God isn't compatibilistically or libertarianly free (as far as we can tell), but this is inconsequential to the free will debate in so far as we are concerned.
As the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states, "...there is also theological determinism, which holds that God determines everything that happens or that, since God has perfect knowledge about the universe, only the course of events that he knows will happen can happen" (emphasis original; 2nd ed. 228).
So even on your definition I don't think you'll be satisfied with where it leaves you, because it doesn't escape many other forms of determinism, including theological determinism.
I'm not sure what you mean by "akin." Soft-determinism simply describes those persons who affirm the existence of free will and affirm that determinism (or "determinism-light") is true. This isn't similar to indeterminism at all since indeterminism denies (rather than affirms) determinism. The label "soft-determinist" simply distinguishes it from what is called "hard-determinism," which is the view that determinism is true and we do not have free will. (Often hard-determinism is grouped with hard-indeterminism under the label hard-incompatibilism, the view that whether or not determinism is true, we don't have free will (cf. Saul Smilanksy and Derk Pereboom).)
No, we are talking about the metaphysical sense.
No. We can still have possible world scenarios and hypotheticals without PAP. PAP is concerned with what could actually be the case. Consider the necessity of the past. If it is now the case (so that it is a fact about the past) that Jesus died on the cross then there is no PAP to this (virtually everyone, libertarians included, agrees with this). Yet we can still imagine possible worlds in which Christ did not die on the cross.
(Furthermore, some libertarians like William Lane Craig and the Christian philosopher David Hunt (not to be confused with the popular Christian author Dave Hunt) agree that PAP may be fase… but they clearly still employ possible worlds and hypotheticals.)
This isn't relevant since an error doesn't count as a free choice. As libertarians such as Robert Kane are quick to admit, it's not enough that indeterminism be true… they need something more than simply an indetermined state of affairs (cf. Kane's book mentioned earlier, pages 32-39. He calls this the "libertarian dilemma").
This won't work either. You are changing the prior state of affairs up to the moment of choice. In my scenario, Jones had deliberated to buy himself vanilla ice-cream, but in your scenario he deliberates to buy ice-cream for a girl.
In order for your scenario to mirror a libertarian state of affairs, Jones must have the same deliberation process. Everything must be exactly the same or else the compatibilist can simply agree that it was this other *different* state of affairs that you have introduced that determined the event.
Again, the libertarian Robert Kane agrees:
Except Christians can side-step this whole issue by pointing out that God can know with certainty what he is going to get ahead of time. Hence the foreknowledge argument in favor of determinism.
This only demonstrates that Libertarians can't prove PAP… I agree, no one can empirically prove PAP since we would have to rewind time basically… But that's not my problem… that's the libertarians problem!
But libertarians usually try to "prove" PAP by appeal to intuition. For example, they will say something like "Surely we are free. But to be free we must have PAP. Hence, PAP must be the case" this is a sort of transcendental proof I guess.
But this is a really bad proof (not because of it's transcendental nature, but because the second premise is so far from obvious and it seems we have good reasons to reject it).
I didn't mean to indicate that there was only one desire. I tried to make it clear that there could be other desires when I said "but there will always be one thing which you desire above all others." The important point is that you will have one desire which "wins out" or is stronger than the others. This is why classical compatibilists usually just say you are free if you choose according to your strongest inclination.
I think the philosopher David Lewis, who I mentioned earlier, gives a standard definition of determinism relevant to the debate:
"...there is a true historical proposition H about the intrinsic state of the world long ago, and there is a true proposition L specifying the laws of nature that govern our world, such that H and L jointly determine what I did" ("Are We Free to Break the Laws?" Philosophical Papers. Vol. II. 291-292).
The libertarian philosopher Robert Kane gives a similar definition:
"An event (such as a choice or action) is determined when there are conditions obtaining earlier (such as the decrees of fate or the foreordaining acts of God or antecedent causes plus laws of nature) whose occurrence is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of the event. In other words, it mustbe the case that, if these earlier determining conditions obtain, then the determined event will occur" (emphasis original; A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will. 5-6).
Notice that both of these philosophers deny determinism (Lewis says "I myself am a compatibilist but no determinist…" (ibid 291)), so they aren't trying to give a biased definition. And neither of these definitions go all the way back to a first cause.
But drawing it back to a first cause which is indetermined is not sufficient to rule out all subsequent event's being determined. If the first cause is such that it determines all subsequent events then it seems sufficient to say that determinism is the case.
Now, if you want to simply stipulate that "determinism" can only apply to an event in which even the first cause (or the entire causal chain) is determined (or say causal determinism is the only thing properly called determinism) then that is fine, but I can just propose a new term, call it "determinism-light," and claim that this is the case in which God's first act (or even all of his acts) are undetermined but that all of our acts are determined.
In fact, this is how many determinists (or more properly soft-determinists) that are Christian frame the issue. Paul Helm and many others (myself included) say that God's "freedom" is sui generis. God isn't compatibilistically or libertarianly free (as far as we can tell), but this is inconsequential to the free will debate in so far as we are concerned.
As the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states, "...there is also theological determinism, which holds that God determines everything that happens or that, since God has perfect knowledge about the universe, only the course of events that he knows will happen can happen" (emphasis original; 2nd ed. 228).
So even on your definition I don't think you'll be satisfied with where it leaves you, because it doesn't escape many other forms of determinism, including theological determinism.
I'm not sure what you mean by "akin." Soft-determinism simply describes those persons who affirm the existence of free will and affirm that determinism (or "determinism-light") is true. This isn't similar to indeterminism at all since indeterminism denies (rather than affirms) determinism. The label "soft-determinist" simply distinguishes it from what is called "hard-determinism," which is the view that determinism is true and we do not have free will. (Often hard-determinism is grouped with hard-indeterminism under the label hard-incompatibilism, the view that whether or not determinism is true, we don't have free will (cf. Saul Smilanksy and Derk Pereboom).)
No, we are talking about the metaphysical sense.
No. We can still have possible world scenarios and hypotheticals without PAP. PAP is concerned with what could actually be the case. Consider the necessity of the past. If it is now the case (so that it is a fact about the past) that Jesus died on the cross then there is no PAP to this (virtually everyone, libertarians included, agrees with this). Yet we can still imagine possible worlds in which Christ did not die on the cross.
(Furthermore, some libertarians like William Lane Craig and the Christian philosopher David Hunt (not to be confused with the popular Christian author Dave Hunt) agree that PAP may be fase… but they clearly still employ possible worlds and hypotheticals.)
This isn't relevant since an error doesn't count as a free choice. As libertarians such as Robert Kane are quick to admit, it's not enough that indeterminism be true… they need something more than simply an indetermined state of affairs (cf. Kane's book mentioned earlier, pages 32-39. He calls this the "libertarian dilemma").
This won't work either. You are changing the prior state of affairs up to the moment of choice. In my scenario, Jones had deliberated to buy himself vanilla ice-cream, but in your scenario he deliberates to buy ice-cream for a girl.
In order for your scenario to mirror a libertarian state of affairs, Jones must have the same deliberation process. Everything must be exactly the same or else the compatibilist can simply agree that it was this other *different* state of affairs that you have introduced that determined the event.
Again, the libertarian Robert Kane agrees:
"...this requirement means… exactly the same prior deliberation, the same thought processes, the same beliefs, desires, and other motives (not a sliver of difference!)… You can't cheat here by suggesting that if the past had been a tiny bit different [a different choice would have been made]" (ibid 16-17).
So we might say that this suggestion of yours is "cheating"
Except Christians can side-step this whole issue by pointing out that God can know with certainty what he is going to get ahead of time. Hence the foreknowledge argument in favor of determinism.
This only demonstrates that Libertarians can't prove PAP… I agree, no one can empirically prove PAP since we would have to rewind time basically… But that's not my problem… that's the libertarians problem!
But libertarians usually try to "prove" PAP by appeal to intuition. For example, they will say something like "Surely we are free. But to be free we must have PAP. Hence, PAP must be the case" this is a sort of transcendental proof I guess.
But this is a really bad proof (not because of it's transcendental nature, but because the second premise is so far from obvious and it seems we have good reasons to reject it).
I didn't mean to indicate that there was only one desire. I tried to make it clear that there could be other desires when I said "but there will always be one thing which you desire above all others." The important point is that you will have one desire which "wins out" or is stronger than the others. This is why classical compatibilists usually just say you are free if you choose according to your strongest inclination.
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C
I guess if it's anything it would be the I: irresistible grace (or effectual call).
Calvinists typically distinguish between God's mode of decree. I've heard the analogy of light and darkness used in this regard before. You don't need anything active to bring about darkness. There is no need for a "dark-bulb," you just need the absense of light. Likewise, God does not does not actualize the sinner's wickedness, but he does "weakly actualize" it, that is a sort of negative governance in which God withdraws his common grace (cf. Alvin Plantinga's The Nature of Necessity). A friend of mine uses the analogy of a cement mixer. To keep cement from hardening you just let it be, to keep it soft you have to continually turn or mix it. So when God hardens a persons, for instance, it is not as though he steps in and changes what the person would have otherwise done, if left to himself. Rather, the hardening is what the person would have otherwise done, if left to himself.
Well the term "limited freedom" in that sense indicates that there is a more robust freedom which persons are lacking. But this is not what Calvinists believe to be the case. When I said they believe in a more limited freedom I was contrasting it specifically with the libertarian theory. But we don't just say the libertarian theory happens to not be what humans have; rather, we say the libertarian theory is incoherent.
Calvinists typically distinguish between God's mode of decree. I've heard the analogy of light and darkness used in this regard before. You don't need anything active to bring about darkness. There is no need for a "dark-bulb," you just need the absense of light. Likewise, God does not does not actualize the sinner's wickedness, but he does "weakly actualize" it, that is a sort of negative governance in which God withdraws his common grace (cf. Alvin Plantinga's The Nature of Necessity). A friend of mine uses the analogy of a cement mixer. To keep cement from hardening you just let it be, to keep it soft you have to continually turn or mix it. So when God hardens a persons, for instance, it is not as though he steps in and changes what the person would have otherwise done, if left to himself. Rather, the hardening is what the person would have otherwise done, if left to himself.
Well the term "limited freedom" in that sense indicates that there is a more robust freedom which persons are lacking. But this is not what Calvinists believe to be the case. When I said they believe in a more limited freedom I was contrasting it specifically with the libertarian theory. But we don't just say the libertarian theory happens to not be what humans have; rather, we say the libertarian theory is incoherent.
L
No idea what that means.
long-winded way of saying "every event has a cause"? I think maybe yes.
I wasn't trying to say all subsequent events aren't determined. Just saying that, if God had no cause, than the world is indeterminate. Things can still be determined within an indeterminate universe, but not all events need have a cause, basically.
Well, my original purpose for even asking about the validity of determinism was because I only thought there was one definition of it, and since I was taught that one definition had been proven false I was confused as to why someone would use it in an argument to make a point.
This is kind of what I meant:
"Now, if you want to simply stipulate that "determinism" can only apply to an event in which even the first cause (or the entire causal chain) is determined (or say causal determinism is the only thing properly called determinism) then that is fine, but I can just propose a new term, call it "determinism-light," and claim that this is the case in which God's first act (or even all of his acts) are undetermined but that all of our acts are determined.
In fact, this is how many determinists (or more properly soft-determinists) that are Christian frame the issue. Paul Helm and many others (myself included) say that God's "freedom" is sui generis. God isn't compatibilistically or libertarianly free (as far as we can tell), but this is inconsequential to the free will debate in so far as we are concerned." (you said it)
Basically, indeterminism doesn't disprove the existence of all determined events. It just proves that not all events are determined. It seemed like you were saying soft-determinism means the same thing: that one event wasn't determined, but the other events are.
Would that be a religious view, or a philosophical view? Because I do remember being taught that one could argue, indeterminism or determinism, there is no free will. It was taught from a philosophical point of view, though, and not a religious stand-point.
I think you misunderstood my point (probably because I'm still thinking concrete logic, instead of philosophical and stuff like you. My fault really). My point was that PAP helps to determine if a conclusion to an argument is valid or not.
I'll use your Jesus example. One could make the argument "Jesus died on the cross, therefore Jesus died on the cross." A redundant argument, but valid nonetheless. With that being the argument, one could try to think up alternative conclusions, but they would all be false, and so it is proved that the conclusion that Jesus died on the cross is true. PAP is used here, then, to prove the conclusion is true, because no other imagined conclusion could ever end up being true.
Now, if I were to argue "Hollie is typing out a response to this post, therefore she is going to post the response" alternative conclusions could be drawn up that have an equal truth value to them. One could say "...but she is going to change her mind and not post the response" or "...but her computer crashes, therefore she does not post the response." Up until I do post the response, the alternative conclusions serve as a means to prove my argument is inductive, if nothing else. PAP is used here, then, that my conclusion(from a deductive point of view) is not valid.
Yes, I realize this doesn't prove free will is true. It does help my mind not to implode, though, so it's all good.
How does an error not count as free will?
Well, I was going more for the accidental thing again (accidentally bought mint, so he just gave it away to a girl), but I guess accidents don't count.
I'm okay with cheating as long as I win an argument... okay, not really.
Or there is the argument that God is outside of time, so He knows everything because it has already happened, or something to that effect. I'm not quite sure how the science of being outside of time works.
If God is outside of time, and one assumes that is something similar to being in the future (placing us in the past), then it is not that he foreknew what we were going to do. He is just looking back on what we have already done. That doesn't take away free will any more than me looking back on what I did yesterday takes away my free will of what I did yesterday.
That's like the argument Christians make to atheists when they say "It's not my problem you can't disprove the existence of God." It's not really a fair argument.
It looks like some steps in that reasoning are missing. Maybe if people explained the second premise better it wouldn't be such a bad proof. I don't know, though. I'll just agree with you that it is a bad proof.
okay
long-winded way of saying "every event has a cause"? I think maybe yes.
I wasn't trying to say all subsequent events aren't determined. Just saying that, if God had no cause, than the world is indeterminate. Things can still be determined within an indeterminate universe, but not all events need have a cause, basically.
Well, my original purpose for even asking about the validity of determinism was because I only thought there was one definition of it, and since I was taught that one definition had been proven false I was confused as to why someone would use it in an argument to make a point.
This is kind of what I meant:
"Now, if you want to simply stipulate that "determinism" can only apply to an event in which even the first cause (or the entire causal chain) is determined (or say causal determinism is the only thing properly called determinism) then that is fine, but I can just propose a new term, call it "determinism-light," and claim that this is the case in which God's first act (or even all of his acts) are undetermined but that all of our acts are determined.
In fact, this is how many determinists (or more properly soft-determinists) that are Christian frame the issue. Paul Helm and many others (myself included) say that God's "freedom" is sui generis. God isn't compatibilistically or libertarianly free (as far as we can tell), but this is inconsequential to the free will debate in so far as we are concerned." (you said it)
Basically, indeterminism doesn't disprove the existence of all determined events. It just proves that not all events are determined. It seemed like you were saying soft-determinism means the same thing: that one event wasn't determined, but the other events are.
Would that be a religious view, or a philosophical view? Because I do remember being taught that one could argue, indeterminism or determinism, there is no free will. It was taught from a philosophical point of view, though, and not a religious stand-point.
I think you misunderstood my point (probably because I'm still thinking concrete logic, instead of philosophical and stuff like you. My fault really). My point was that PAP helps to determine if a conclusion to an argument is valid or not.
I'll use your Jesus example. One could make the argument "Jesus died on the cross, therefore Jesus died on the cross." A redundant argument, but valid nonetheless. With that being the argument, one could try to think up alternative conclusions, but they would all be false, and so it is proved that the conclusion that Jesus died on the cross is true. PAP is used here, then, to prove the conclusion is true, because no other imagined conclusion could ever end up being true.
Now, if I were to argue "Hollie is typing out a response to this post, therefore she is going to post the response" alternative conclusions could be drawn up that have an equal truth value to them. One could say "...but she is going to change her mind and not post the response" or "...but her computer crashes, therefore she does not post the response." Up until I do post the response, the alternative conclusions serve as a means to prove my argument is inductive, if nothing else. PAP is used here, then, that my conclusion(from a deductive point of view) is not valid.
Yes, I realize this doesn't prove free will is true. It does help my mind not to implode, though, so it's all good.
How does an error not count as free will?
Well, I was going more for the accidental thing again (accidentally bought mint, so he just gave it away to a girl), but I guess accidents don't count.
In order for your scenario to mirror a libertarian state of affairs, Jones must have the same deliberation process. Everything must be exactly the same or else the compatibilist can simply agree that it was this other *different* state of affairs that you have introduced that determined the event.
Again, the libertarian Robert Kane agrees:
Again, the libertarian Robert Kane agrees:
"...this requirement means… exactly the same prior deliberation, the same thought processes, the same beliefs, desires, and other motives (not a sliver of difference!)… You can't cheat here by suggesting that if the past had been a tiny bit different [a different choice would have been made]" (ibid 16-17).
So we might say that this suggestion of yours is "cheating"
Except Christians can side-step this whole issue by pointing out that God can know with certainty what he is going to get ahead of time. Hence the foreknowledge argument in favor of determinism.
If God is outside of time, and one assumes that is something similar to being in the future (placing us in the past), then it is not that he foreknew what we were going to do. He is just looking back on what we have already done. That doesn't take away free will any more than me looking back on what I did yesterday takes away my free will of what I did yesterday.
That's like the argument Christians make to atheists when they say "It's not my problem you can't disprove the existence of God." It's not really a fair argument.
It looks like some steps in that reasoning are missing. Maybe if people explained the second premise better it wouldn't be such a bad proof. I don't know, though. I'll just agree with you that it is a bad proof.
okay
C
Lewis and Kane both give their definitions in the predicative form. If you get Kane, you should be able to get Lewis. If you add "x is determined when…" to the beginning of the Lewis quote it might help you see how similar Kane and Lewis's definitions are. Kane just gives examples for Lewis's H variable and leaves out the L variable (since I don't think it is relevant in some forms of determinism).
Well, not really "long-winded"… Kane was giving a definition and, nowadays, virtually every philosopher gives these types of predicative definitions since they do make it clearer whether a particular instance fits into that concept or term.
There might not be anything wrong with saying "every event has a cause," except there are many different types of causes and many different causal theories. If we are going to capture various forms of determinism, like theological and scientific determinism, under the phrase "cause" then our concept of "cause" will have to be rather abstract… in which case I think Kane's definition will actually be the clearer one. In fact you might end up having to go back and define cause in such a way that it ends up looking very much like something Kane said: a sufficient condition for the occurrence of an event!
I don't think it's very clear to use determinism/indeterminism in this way. If you said to someone "the universe (or world) is indeterminate" they would probably be very surprised to hear you admit that "this may mean all creaturely actions are determined." My guess is that this wouldn't sound like indeterminism to them and if you simply stipulate that it is, like I said earlier, I don't think they would find it very relevant.
(Besides, I don't think the example of God not having a cause works. You mentioned God not coming into being, but this simply means that the concept of causation in the sense of "beginning to exist" doesn't properly apply to God. In other words, it's just a category error to ask "what caused God?" and I don't see that it has any significance to in/determinism since it's not clear why in/determinism should depend on that type of causality. God's coming into being wasn't an event at all, so trying to fit that non-event into the category of "events-of-coming-into-being" doesn't make sense.)
No, some soft-determinists, like Daniel Dennett, don't think any events were indetermined (and he's an atheist so he certainly wouldn't care about the God not coming into existence thing).
I'm not sure how you would distinguish those two. Some Buddhists don't believe in free will and I guess you could say that's a point of their religious dogma, but at the same time it is unavoidably a statement about metaphysics, which is a field of philosophy.
So it can be both… but I guess it depends on how or if you want to distinguish them. For example, I've heard it said that something is religious if it is grounded in revelation and something is philosophic if grounded unaided reason. But I don't find that too helpful.
No... The Principle of Alternative Possibilities is a technical term that refers to a very specific thing and it seems like you are getting hung up on the term "alternative possibilities" in a generic sense of something like "possible world scenarios". But this might be my fault since I never actually defined PAP.
PAP states that persons can't be morally blameworthy (or praiseworthy) unless they could have done otherwise (under the exact same conditions). It seems obvious enough that we can have possible world scenarios and hypotheticals without saying that these occurred under the exact same conditions, without saying that they could have been actual, and without saying they are necessary to a thing being morally blameworthy/praiseworthy.
The example you gave there didn't employ PAP.
Because of the way free will is typically defined. For example, all libertarians say that an agent must have control over his actions/choices if he is to be free (compatibilists agree to a point, but distinguish between types of control (e.g., regulative and guidance)). But an action that is a result of some error or mistake is not within the control of the agent (all things being equal). For instance, people with Tourette's have a type of "brain-error" and so we don't hold them responsible for their random cursing and we don't consider their random cursing to be a free act of the will.
Of course we can imagine examples in which "accidents" are morally blameworthy, but this isn't relevant to the type of example (or "error") you gave.
This is commonly called the "Boethian" objection or solution in the relevant literature, presumably because Boethius (in "The Consolation of Philosophy") was the first to suggest it. I don't think it holds any water, but insofar as it deals with time it gets into some complicated issues.
First of all, on some theories of time, for instance a relational A-theory of time, it doesn't even make sense to say God is "outside" of time, unless you are some sort of a deist.
But if God is outside of time and sees everything as present, then how does he know tensed propositions like "It is now no longer raining" or "yesterday I went to the mall"? If God doesn't know tensed propositions as such, then are they objectively true for us? Are the tenseless propositions true for God? How can they both be true? And if they are false for us (I assume they would not be false for God) then we have to posit a B-theory of time which has it's own difficulties!
So I'm not convinced it makes any sense to say God is "outside" of time. I have no problem with saying God is eternal, and I think we have good reasons for believing that, but I see no good reason to say God is "outside" of time.
Second, you say "That doesn't take away free will"… but this statement is vague. The foreknowledge argument is not intended to show that we don't have free will, unless you think free will requires an indeterminist state of affairs. The foreknowledge is immediately concerned with demonstrating the necessity (or "determinism") of events.
If you think free will requires indeterminism, you will think the foreknowledge argument shows we don't have free will. If you think free will is compatible with determinism , you won't think it shows we don't have free will.
Third, you talk about past states of affairs and free will. But virtually everyone agrees that the past is necessary (accidentally or "necessity per accidens" as its often called).
You can't change the past (unless, I suppose, you posit a B-theory of time in which "the past" is just a subjective term anyway… but I'm not sure you could change "the past" there either). But if God sees all events as past events, then it seems that all events are just as necessary as all past events! So you still don't have PAP and you still end up with a type of determinism.
Fourth, the Bible speaks of God knowing things ahead of time. Why would we reject that? For instance, Jesus told Peter that at some future time he would deny Jesus three times. Whether or not this was actually foreknown by God (or whether God knew it as a present event or a past event) is irrelevant since at some time, t1, it was known that at some future time, t2, he would deny Jesus three times. Jesus could not have been mistaken. Ergo, Peter's denial of Jesus was still a necessary event, regardless of how God knew the event.
To summarize, I see no value at all in positing God being outside of time. It doesn't seem to make any sense and it doesn't seem to solve any problem (i.e. the foreknowledge --> determinism problem) and in fact it raises several problems (does God know tensed propositions? does it require a B-theory of time? what do we do with Scripture that speak of God's foreknowledge?). It looks useless to me.
No one is asking the libertarians to disprove something. They postulate PAP… how is the fact that they can't provide empirical evidence of their claim unfair?
To rework it into a clearer transcendental form it might look more like this: free will presupposes PAP. Free will. Therefore, PAP.
There are no steps missing, but you might think the first premise is unconvincing without some support.
Well, not really "long-winded"… Kane was giving a definition and, nowadays, virtually every philosopher gives these types of predicative definitions since they do make it clearer whether a particular instance fits into that concept or term.
There might not be anything wrong with saying "every event has a cause," except there are many different types of causes and many different causal theories. If we are going to capture various forms of determinism, like theological and scientific determinism, under the phrase "cause" then our concept of "cause" will have to be rather abstract… in which case I think Kane's definition will actually be the clearer one. In fact you might end up having to go back and define cause in such a way that it ends up looking very much like something Kane said: a sufficient condition for the occurrence of an event!
I don't think it's very clear to use determinism/indeterminism in this way. If you said to someone "the universe (or world) is indeterminate" they would probably be very surprised to hear you admit that "this may mean all creaturely actions are determined." My guess is that this wouldn't sound like indeterminism to them and if you simply stipulate that it is, like I said earlier, I don't think they would find it very relevant.
(Besides, I don't think the example of God not having a cause works. You mentioned God not coming into being, but this simply means that the concept of causation in the sense of "beginning to exist" doesn't properly apply to God. In other words, it's just a category error to ask "what caused God?" and I don't see that it has any significance to in/determinism since it's not clear why in/determinism should depend on that type of causality. God's coming into being wasn't an event at all, so trying to fit that non-event into the category of "events-of-coming-into-being" doesn't make sense.)
No, some soft-determinists, like Daniel Dennett, don't think any events were indetermined (and he's an atheist so he certainly wouldn't care about the God not coming into existence thing).
I'm not sure how you would distinguish those two. Some Buddhists don't believe in free will and I guess you could say that's a point of their religious dogma, but at the same time it is unavoidably a statement about metaphysics, which is a field of philosophy.
So it can be both… but I guess it depends on how or if you want to distinguish them. For example, I've heard it said that something is religious if it is grounded in revelation and something is philosophic if grounded unaided reason. But I don't find that too helpful.
No... The Principle of Alternative Possibilities is a technical term that refers to a very specific thing and it seems like you are getting hung up on the term "alternative possibilities" in a generic sense of something like "possible world scenarios". But this might be my fault since I never actually defined PAP.
PAP states that persons can't be morally blameworthy (or praiseworthy) unless they could have done otherwise (under the exact same conditions). It seems obvious enough that we can have possible world scenarios and hypotheticals without saying that these occurred under the exact same conditions, without saying that they could have been actual, and without saying they are necessary to a thing being morally blameworthy/praiseworthy.
The example you gave there didn't employ PAP.
Because of the way free will is typically defined. For example, all libertarians say that an agent must have control over his actions/choices if he is to be free (compatibilists agree to a point, but distinguish between types of control (e.g., regulative and guidance)). But an action that is a result of some error or mistake is not within the control of the agent (all things being equal). For instance, people with Tourette's have a type of "brain-error" and so we don't hold them responsible for their random cursing and we don't consider their random cursing to be a free act of the will.
Of course we can imagine examples in which "accidents" are morally blameworthy, but this isn't relevant to the type of example (or "error") you gave.
This is commonly called the "Boethian" objection or solution in the relevant literature, presumably because Boethius (in "The Consolation of Philosophy") was the first to suggest it. I don't think it holds any water, but insofar as it deals with time it gets into some complicated issues.
First of all, on some theories of time, for instance a relational A-theory of time, it doesn't even make sense to say God is "outside" of time, unless you are some sort of a deist.
But if God is outside of time and sees everything as present, then how does he know tensed propositions like "It is now no longer raining" or "yesterday I went to the mall"? If God doesn't know tensed propositions as such, then are they objectively true for us? Are the tenseless propositions true for God? How can they both be true? And if they are false for us (I assume they would not be false for God) then we have to posit a B-theory of time which has it's own difficulties!
So I'm not convinced it makes any sense to say God is "outside" of time. I have no problem with saying God is eternal, and I think we have good reasons for believing that, but I see no good reason to say God is "outside" of time.
Second, you say "That doesn't take away free will"… but this statement is vague. The foreknowledge argument is not intended to show that we don't have free will, unless you think free will requires an indeterminist state of affairs. The foreknowledge is immediately concerned with demonstrating the necessity (or "determinism") of events.
If you think free will requires indeterminism, you will think the foreknowledge argument shows we don't have free will. If you think free will is compatible with determinism , you won't think it shows we don't have free will.
Third, you talk about past states of affairs and free will. But virtually everyone agrees that the past is necessary (accidentally or "necessity per accidens" as its often called).
You can't change the past (unless, I suppose, you posit a B-theory of time in which "the past" is just a subjective term anyway… but I'm not sure you could change "the past" there either). But if God sees all events as past events, then it seems that all events are just as necessary as all past events! So you still don't have PAP and you still end up with a type of determinism.
Fourth, the Bible speaks of God knowing things ahead of time. Why would we reject that? For instance, Jesus told Peter that at some future time he would deny Jesus three times. Whether or not this was actually foreknown by God (or whether God knew it as a present event or a past event) is irrelevant since at some time, t1, it was known that at some future time, t2, he would deny Jesus three times. Jesus could not have been mistaken. Ergo, Peter's denial of Jesus was still a necessary event, regardless of how God knew the event.
To summarize, I see no value at all in positing God being outside of time. It doesn't seem to make any sense and it doesn't seem to solve any problem (i.e. the foreknowledge --> determinism problem) and in fact it raises several problems (does God know tensed propositions? does it require a B-theory of time? what do we do with Scripture that speak of God's foreknowledge?). It looks useless to me.
No one is asking the libertarians to disprove something. They postulate PAP… how is the fact that they can't provide empirical evidence of their claim unfair?
To rework it into a clearer transcendental form it might look more like this: free will presupposes PAP. Free will. Therefore, PAP.
There are no steps missing, but you might think the first premise is unconvincing without some support.
C
Looking back at your question I guess I didn't really adress it. I suppose I read over your question quickly and thought you were asking "This belief would predestine some to be bad..."
But you asked,
No, it wouldn't mean everyone is predestined to be bad. Calvinists (I prefer the term Reformed so I'll use that from now on) believe some are predestined to be cleansed and glorified.
Of course, some people are "predestined" to "be bad" (Prov. 16:4, Rom 9:17, and Jude 4 suggest this, I think), but, as I did explain in my last comment, we distinguish the way in which God does this, not by an active or immediate creation of evil but through a withdrawal of His grace (I think this is indicated in passages like Isaiah 63:17: "O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage" cf. Lam. 5:21).
By God's enabling grace.
But you asked,
No, it wouldn't mean everyone is predestined to be bad. Calvinists (I prefer the term Reformed so I'll use that from now on) believe some are predestined to be cleansed and glorified.
Of course, some people are "predestined" to "be bad" (Prov. 16:4, Rom 9:17, and Jude 4 suggest this, I think), but, as I did explain in my last comment, we distinguish the way in which God does this, not by an active or immediate creation of evil but through a withdrawal of His grace (I think this is indicated in passages like Isaiah 63:17: "O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart, so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage" cf. Lam. 5:21).
By God's enabling grace.
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L
Still confused lol. Don't worry about it
My own understanding of the word "cause": the antecedent circumstances to an effect. It seems rather all-encompassing. People can make numerous little definitions of the word "cause" that make it more specific and tailored to specific events, but "cause" is a rather general term to start with.
Well, I don't think people who believe in indeterminism go around saying "Nothing has a cause. Everything just happens."
Logically, pretty much everything follows a determinism pattern. I sneeze, it is caused by something going on in my nose, caused by something going on in my brain, in my neurons, etc. When someone believes in indeterminism, they aren't trying to disprove these facts. They are simply saying that while most things follow a deterministic pattern, some things simply are indeterministic.
Personally, I am having a hard time separating scientific in/determinism from this apparent theological in/determinism. It just seems like they work similar to me, even if they are applied to different things.
Well, the purpose of showing that in/determinism both lead to us having no free will was to show that we have no moral responsibility. If we have no free will, then we cannot be held responsible for our actions. I don't think that applies to a religious debate, since as Christians we know we are held to a higher moral standard, and that is the standard God gives to us. So whether we believe in free will or not, we still have moral responsibility.
Well, how does an example of a man getting ice-cream have anything to do with being morally blameworthy or praiseworthy, then? Is PAP only used in the instances where morals are concerned? Because I don't think every choice has a moral stigma attached to it. My choosing between reading a Dekker book and a Peretti book, for example, doesn't really give one an option of saying that is either morally praiseworthy or blameworthy.
okay
If God created time, He would obviously have to have an understanding of it. God is all-knowing, so even if He is outside of time, He still knows how it functions.
It's just a postulation. I have no way of actually knowing if God is outside of time or not.
I don't see how that is a vague statement.
I apparently don't understand how PAP works, so I can't really use it to make a point.
Like I said, though, looking back on what has occurred does not negate the existence of choice. I can look back on all the choices I made yesterday, and that does not mean I am taking away the will I had yesterday to have chosen things to do. If God is outside of time, and He is looking back on what I am doing right now it does not take away my will to choose now. It just means that, for Him, what I am doing now has already occurred.
Peter did not believe he would ever deny Jesus, and when the time came for him to deny Jesus it was a personal choice he made each time. It was not until afterwards that he even realized the personal choices he had made to deny Jesus had been predicted by Jesus beforehand.
In any case, to say God is outside of time means He would have foreknowledge of things, see things as past occurrences, and see things as they are happening now.
because not every argument requires a definitive answer. One can either provide an argument where the answer is 100% this or 100%, or one can provide an argument where the answer falls in between 0 and 100%. In the case of the latter, it is the closeness to 100% that makes it a stronger argument.
So the correct argument would be, "PAP is true, and I can show you the probability of my claim being true." It is not wrong to argue like this. In the case of probabilities, it is wrong to try and get a 100% answer, though, because it simply is not possible.
My own understanding of the word "cause": the antecedent circumstances to an effect. It seems rather all-encompassing. People can make numerous little definitions of the word "cause" that make it more specific and tailored to specific events, but "cause" is a rather general term to start with.
Well, I don't think people who believe in indeterminism go around saying "Nothing has a cause. Everything just happens."
Logically, pretty much everything follows a determinism pattern. I sneeze, it is caused by something going on in my nose, caused by something going on in my brain, in my neurons, etc. When someone believes in indeterminism, they aren't trying to disprove these facts. They are simply saying that while most things follow a deterministic pattern, some things simply are indeterministic.
Personally, I am having a hard time separating scientific in/determinism from this apparent theological in/determinism. It just seems like they work similar to me, even if they are applied to different things.
Well, the purpose of showing that in/determinism both lead to us having no free will was to show that we have no moral responsibility. If we have no free will, then we cannot be held responsible for our actions. I don't think that applies to a religious debate, since as Christians we know we are held to a higher moral standard, and that is the standard God gives to us. So whether we believe in free will or not, we still have moral responsibility.
Well, how does an example of a man getting ice-cream have anything to do with being morally blameworthy or praiseworthy, then? Is PAP only used in the instances where morals are concerned? Because I don't think every choice has a moral stigma attached to it. My choosing between reading a Dekker book and a Peretti book, for example, doesn't really give one an option of saying that is either morally praiseworthy or blameworthy.
okay
If God created time, He would obviously have to have an understanding of it. God is all-knowing, so even if He is outside of time, He still knows how it functions.
It's just a postulation. I have no way of actually knowing if God is outside of time or not.
I don't see how that is a vague statement.
I apparently don't understand how PAP works, so I can't really use it to make a point.
Like I said, though, looking back on what has occurred does not negate the existence of choice. I can look back on all the choices I made yesterday, and that does not mean I am taking away the will I had yesterday to have chosen things to do. If God is outside of time, and He is looking back on what I am doing right now it does not take away my will to choose now. It just means that, for Him, what I am doing now has already occurred.
Peter did not believe he would ever deny Jesus, and when the time came for him to deny Jesus it was a personal choice he made each time. It was not until afterwards that he even realized the personal choices he had made to deny Jesus had been predicted by Jesus beforehand.
In any case, to say God is outside of time means He would have foreknowledge of things, see things as past occurrences, and see things as they are happening now.
because not every argument requires a definitive answer. One can either provide an argument where the answer is 100% this or 100%, or one can provide an argument where the answer falls in between 0 and 100%. In the case of the latter, it is the closeness to 100% that makes it a stronger argument.
So the correct argument would be, "PAP is true, and I can show you the probability of my claim being true." It is not wrong to argue like this. In the case of probabilities, it is wrong to try and get a 100% answer, though, because it simply is not possible.
C
You would need to specify that these are sufficient causes since we can specify causes which are non-determinative causes (these may be causes which add "probability" to an event's occurrence, but are not in themselves sufficient to bring about the event).
So your definition looks like this: "the antecedent circumstances which are sufficient to bring about an effect."
Now let's look back at Kane's definition:
So in the end it looks like your version is vague and when we clarify it it ends up looking just like Kane's "long-winded" definition.
In the context of the debate no one really cares about whether or not our sneezes are in/determined. So, like I said earlier, that definition simply ends up being irrelevant and we end up just positing a more relevant term, like determinism-light. But in the context of the free will debate it's really not necessary to coin any new terms since everyone understands that we are concerned with the determinism of human agency.
In theological determinism God is the agent who determines events and it leaves room for events being governed through non-ordinary means, such as divine willing permission.
When I gave the example of ice-cream I specified that it was related to the particular claim that "a person, being the same exact person under the same exact conditions, might make two different choices if you were able to 'rewind' time, so to speak."
That doesn't illustrate the moral concerns of PAP, but it does illustrate one aspect of PAP, the ability to do otherwise under the exact same conditions, which is what I was talking about in post 52.
You then said that PAP is kind of necessary for logic, I replied that it wasn't since we can still think of possible world scenarios without PAP. Now the confusion is probably my fault, but we don't need PAP to help us think logically.
We don't even need the concept of a thing happening otherwise under the act same conditions, which is the relevant part of PAP that I was specifying, to think logically… in fact when you try to employ it you only end up with inexplicable events.
For example, go back to my ice-cream example. If Jones had chosen vanilla ice-cream we could have explained it and made rational sense out of it. Jones likes vanilla ice-cream. Jones wanted vanilla ice-cream for lunch. Jones deliberated to buy vanilla ice-cream. Jones is allergic to all other flavors of ice-cream. Jones intends to buy vanilla ice-cream for lunch.
Now when you take those exact same circumstances and have Jones buy chocolate ice-cream his decision becomes inexplicable and irrational. If you try to explain it, as you did, you only cheat by changing the antecedent conditions: Jones didn't deliberate to buy ice-cream for lunch, he deliberated to buy ice-cream for a girl. Jones didn't want vanilla ice-cream for lunch, he wanted to buy chocolate ice-cream for a girl. And I already explained why positing an error into the scenario doesn't help you out.
I think we can see the same sort of inexplicability and irrationality popping into all scenarios of the ability to do otherwise under the exact same conditions. This is because it requires we do not make reason-specific choices. What are they specific to? Apparently nothing…
I don't think this answers the question. An understanding of time and how it works doesn't necessarily imply a knowledge of the truth value of tensed propositions. For example, I can be a watchmaker and perfectly understand how watches work without knowing what time any particular watch indicates.
And saying that God knows everything doesn't show how this is consistent with God knowing all things as eternally present (or past). What if I say "It is raining at my house right now." This is false, but if I had said it yesterday it would have been true. But if God knows all things as present (or past) then in what sense could he know it as false (or even as true)? If God knows things as eternally present (or past) then he doesn't distinguish between "now" and "yesterday" or "tomorrow" because everything is "now" (or "yesterday"). In other words, it looks very reasonable to say that if God knows everything, and if a tensed theory of time is true (and it certainly seems true), then it is not the case that God knows all things as present or past… because not all things are present or past!!
Because there are different theories of free will. So when you say "That doesn't take away free will" are you making that statement from the vantage point of a theory like compatibilism or are you making the claim in regards to all theories? The former is true, the latter is false.
Determinism doesn't negate the existence of choice either. Robert Kane defines a choice as the "formation of an intention or purpose to do something," but that doesn't rule out our choices being determined.
So I can say God looking forward (or God having foreknowledge) doesn't negate the existence of choice either… but it still seems to be the case that our choices were necessary and we couldn't have done otherwise than we did.
So while it may not make a difference to whether or not we make choices, it does make a difference to whether or not we have libertarian free will (that requires PAP). And I already explained why saying God knows it as a past event doesn't get you around the problem… instead it raises new ones.
That Peter didn't believe it is irrelevant. The fact that Jesus said at some earlier time, t1, that at some future time, t2, Peter would deny him is sufficient to necessitate the event. The fact remains, regardless of how you try to explain God's relationship to time, that there was some time after t1 and before t2 in which Jesus' prediction was a past event and, therefore, Peter's denial, still being future, was accidentally necessary (he couldn't have done otherwise… it was determined)... unless of course you want to deny the reality of time.
But all of this is a very heavy price to pay to try and save "free will."
I have no idea what this means… if you mean God knows the future as future, the past as past, and the present as present then you aren't really saying anything and you're in the same dilemma… if you mean God knows all things as present (or past) as you earlier said then it is not the case that he has foreknowledge and you claim looks like a contradiction.
I didn't say it was wrong to argue by way of probability. I never said "libertarians can't give empirical support for PAP and so PAP must be false" or anything at all like that… so I'm not sure what your point is. You were trying to say that some claim was "unfair," but here you're specifying something that was never said as being unfair.
But where is the probability argument?
So your definition looks like this: "the antecedent circumstances which are sufficient to bring about an effect."
Now let's look back at Kane's definition:
"An event (...example) is determined when there are conditions obtaining earlier [antecedent circumstances] (...example) whose occurrence is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of the event [which are sufficient to bring about an effect]. In other words [...explanation]."
So in the end it looks like your version is vague and when we clarify it it ends up looking just like Kane's "long-winded" definition.
In the context of the debate no one really cares about whether or not our sneezes are in/determined. So, like I said earlier, that definition simply ends up being irrelevant and we end up just positing a more relevant term, like determinism-light. But in the context of the free will debate it's really not necessary to coin any new terms since everyone understands that we are concerned with the determinism of human agency.
In theological determinism God is the agent who determines events and it leaves room for events being governed through non-ordinary means, such as divine willing permission.
When I gave the example of ice-cream I specified that it was related to the particular claim that "a person, being the same exact person under the same exact conditions, might make two different choices if you were able to 'rewind' time, so to speak."
That doesn't illustrate the moral concerns of PAP, but it does illustrate one aspect of PAP, the ability to do otherwise under the exact same conditions, which is what I was talking about in post 52.
You then said that PAP is kind of necessary for logic, I replied that it wasn't since we can still think of possible world scenarios without PAP. Now the confusion is probably my fault, but we don't need PAP to help us think logically.
We don't even need the concept of a thing happening otherwise under the act same conditions, which is the relevant part of PAP that I was specifying, to think logically… in fact when you try to employ it you only end up with inexplicable events.
For example, go back to my ice-cream example. If Jones had chosen vanilla ice-cream we could have explained it and made rational sense out of it. Jones likes vanilla ice-cream. Jones wanted vanilla ice-cream for lunch. Jones deliberated to buy vanilla ice-cream. Jones is allergic to all other flavors of ice-cream. Jones intends to buy vanilla ice-cream for lunch.
Now when you take those exact same circumstances and have Jones buy chocolate ice-cream his decision becomes inexplicable and irrational. If you try to explain it, as you did, you only cheat by changing the antecedent conditions: Jones didn't deliberate to buy ice-cream for lunch, he deliberated to buy ice-cream for a girl. Jones didn't want vanilla ice-cream for lunch, he wanted to buy chocolate ice-cream for a girl. And I already explained why positing an error into the scenario doesn't help you out.
I think we can see the same sort of inexplicability and irrationality popping into all scenarios of the ability to do otherwise under the exact same conditions. This is because it requires we do not make reason-specific choices. What are they specific to? Apparently nothing…
I don't think this answers the question. An understanding of time and how it works doesn't necessarily imply a knowledge of the truth value of tensed propositions. For example, I can be a watchmaker and perfectly understand how watches work without knowing what time any particular watch indicates.
And saying that God knows everything doesn't show how this is consistent with God knowing all things as eternally present (or past). What if I say "It is raining at my house right now." This is false, but if I had said it yesterday it would have been true. But if God knows all things as present (or past) then in what sense could he know it as false (or even as true)? If God knows things as eternally present (or past) then he doesn't distinguish between "now" and "yesterday" or "tomorrow" because everything is "now" (or "yesterday"). In other words, it looks very reasonable to say that if God knows everything, and if a tensed theory of time is true (and it certainly seems true), then it is not the case that God knows all things as present or past… because not all things are present or past!!
Because there are different theories of free will. So when you say "That doesn't take away free will" are you making that statement from the vantage point of a theory like compatibilism or are you making the claim in regards to all theories? The former is true, the latter is false.
Determinism doesn't negate the existence of choice either. Robert Kane defines a choice as the "formation of an intention or purpose to do something," but that doesn't rule out our choices being determined.
So I can say God looking forward (or God having foreknowledge) doesn't negate the existence of choice either… but it still seems to be the case that our choices were necessary and we couldn't have done otherwise than we did.
So while it may not make a difference to whether or not we make choices, it does make a difference to whether or not we have libertarian free will (that requires PAP). And I already explained why saying God knows it as a past event doesn't get you around the problem… instead it raises new ones.
That Peter didn't believe it is irrelevant. The fact that Jesus said at some earlier time, t1, that at some future time, t2, Peter would deny him is sufficient to necessitate the event. The fact remains, regardless of how you try to explain God's relationship to time, that there was some time after t1 and before t2 in which Jesus' prediction was a past event and, therefore, Peter's denial, still being future, was accidentally necessary (he couldn't have done otherwise… it was determined)... unless of course you want to deny the reality of time.
But all of this is a very heavy price to pay to try and save "free will."
I have no idea what this means… if you mean God knows the future as future, the past as past, and the present as present then you aren't really saying anything and you're in the same dilemma… if you mean God knows all things as present (or past) as you earlier said then it is not the case that he has foreknowledge and you claim looks like a contradiction.
I didn't say it was wrong to argue by way of probability. I never said "libertarians can't give empirical support for PAP and so PAP must be false" or anything at all like that… so I'm not sure what your point is. You were trying to say that some claim was "unfair," but here you're specifying something that was never said as being unfair.
But where is the probability argument?
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come."[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica] (NIV, Mark 13:32-33)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]I believe God does know the future, How else would he know the exact moment when Jesus is to come again?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]I also agree with what most people are saying that we can't humanise God or as I tend to think of it God is beyond our human experience.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]I look to Jesus for the answer, he was both 100% human and 100% God at the same time. He made real decisions while he was on earth, yet God already knew what was going to happen to him which can be seen in him fullfilling the prophecies. Although this is a difficult concept to get your head around.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]I believe God does know the future, How else would he know the exact moment when Jesus is to come again?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]I also agree with what most people are saying that we can't humanise God or as I tend to think of it God is beyond our human experience.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]I look to Jesus for the answer, he was both 100% human and 100% God at the same time. He made real decisions while he was on earth, yet God already knew what was going to happen to him which can be seen in him fullfilling the prophecies. Although this is a difficult concept to get your head around.
[/FONT]
L
Right, so my simple definition is sufficient. Sometimes I like things to be simple. (and by sometimes, I mean most of the time)
Mkay, well as I said, I am having trouble separating scientific in/determinism from the theological.
okay
Okay, I think I get the PAP thing now (kind of).
With the Jones example though, it seems like it was constructed in such a way that it is impossible for him to make any other sort of choice without seeming irrational. He could choose chocolate ice-cream because he is feeling particularly self-destructive, but that would be irrational. He could pick pistachio because he likes the way it looks, but that would go against his desire to actually eat ice-cream. Or perhaps he would choose something other than vanilla just to prove this argument wrong
To use a real-life example, my dad orders pizza sometimes, and he always gets one that is cheese pizza, and another that is meatlovers. I do not eat red meat mixed with cheese, neither do I eat pork. It would seem, then, that the only choice for me is to eat the cheese pizza, and that is what I eat. If given the situation to do over, I would still eat the cheese pizza. It is still a personal decision, though. I am not compelled to eat the cheese pizza. I could eat the meatlovers if I wanted to. Granted, I would feel bad after doing so, and might possibly get a stomach ache. I don’t know.
The argument is that he is outside of time, so I don't know if he would look at anything as all present, all past, or all future. I never really invested time in the belief, so I wouldn't really know the arguments for supporting it(though I'm sure there are some out there). I just know it is one explanation people use so that they can try to better understand God.
Okay. Uhm, I was talking about free will from the in/compatibilism point of view? I think. I'm already forgetting what all the definitions you gave for this stuff were. I probably should have responded faster so that I wouldn't have forgotten all that was discussed.
Okay
It was predicted he would do so, yes, but he still chose to do it. There was the option of not denying Jesus available to him, but he chose the option of denying Jesus.
No, I don't intend to deny the reality of time.
I think I was saying that if God is outside of time, he would see things as a sort of timeline. At least that seems like that would be a reasonable explanation for what I was trying to say.
I was saying it was unfair to say "It's your problem that you can't prove a negative." (well, you didn't use those exact words)
As a side note, this started out as an inquiry into your beliefs, but I guess I'm not good at asking people with beliefs different than my own to explain said beliefs without turning it into a debate. Sorry
Sometimes I like things to be simple. (and by sometimes, I mean most of the time)Mkay, well as I said, I am having trouble separating scientific in/determinism from the theological.
okay
Okay, I think I get the PAP thing now (kind of).
With the Jones example though, it seems like it was constructed in such a way that it is impossible for him to make any other sort of choice without seeming irrational. He could choose chocolate ice-cream because he is feeling particularly self-destructive, but that would be irrational. He could pick pistachio because he likes the way it looks, but that would go against his desire to actually eat ice-cream. Or perhaps he would choose something other than vanilla just to prove this argument wrong
To use a real-life example, my dad orders pizza sometimes, and he always gets one that is cheese pizza, and another that is meatlovers. I do not eat red meat mixed with cheese, neither do I eat pork. It would seem, then, that the only choice for me is to eat the cheese pizza, and that is what I eat. If given the situation to do over, I would still eat the cheese pizza. It is still a personal decision, though. I am not compelled to eat the cheese pizza. I could eat the meatlovers if I wanted to. Granted, I would feel bad after doing so, and might possibly get a stomach ache. I don’t know.
The argument is that he is outside of time, so I don't know if he would look at anything as all present, all past, or all future. I never really invested time in the belief, so I wouldn't really know the arguments for supporting it(though I'm sure there are some out there). I just know it is one explanation people use so that they can try to better understand God.
Okay. Uhm, I was talking about free will from the in/compatibilism point of view? I think. I'm already forgetting what all the definitions you gave for this stuff were. I probably should have responded faster so that I wouldn't have forgotten all that was discussed.
Okay
It was predicted he would do so, yes, but he still chose to do it. There was the option of not denying Jesus available to him, but he chose the option of denying Jesus.
No, I don't intend to deny the reality of time.
I think I was saying that if God is outside of time, he would see things as a sort of timeline. At least that seems like that would be a reasonable explanation for what I was trying to say.
I was saying it was unfair to say "It's your problem that you can't prove a negative." (well, you didn't use those exact words)
As a side note, this started out as an inquiry into your beliefs, but I guess I'm not good at asking people with beliefs different than my own to explain said beliefs without turning it into a debate. Sorry
C
The point of a definition is to clarify the definiendum. An imprecise definition fails to do that. "Every event has a cause" is unclear. When we make it clear, it turns out to be just as "long-winded" as Kane's (minus the examples).
So sure, your clarified definition is sufficient, but then so is Kane's and so we could have just left it at that. I don't see that your clarified definition is any simpler than Kane's. And Kane's came with examples and illustrations, so that makes it even clearer. Most of the time, clearer is simpler.
I think what I've said previously already responds to this, but let me try again.
You suggest that my example is rigged to make it look like Jones couldn't have made a contrary choice. But when you give examples you just end up cheating, like Kane said.
You say, "He could choose chocolate because…"
That's cheating. It's changing the antecedent conditions.
A determinist can agree that if Jones were feeling self-destructive then he could have chosen chocolate. In other words, if the conditions had been different the outcome would have been different.
That doesn't defeat determinism, it falls perfectly in line with it. Perhaps you're confusing determinism with a type of Greek fatalism.
Some Greeks had a notion of fatalism that said no matter what certain things were bound to occur. So, the classic illustration goes, even if Oedipus was left in the woods to die as an infant he would still have murdered his father and married his mother. That was the fate of Oedipus and nothing could change that.
Even if Oedipus were abducted by aliens and shot off into the Sun as an experiment he would have still come back to life and killed his father and married his mother by some miracle.
In this sort of fate, the end of a thing is determined but nothing else needs to be determined. So, for example, Oedipus can be determined to murder his father… but being abducted by aliens isn't determined.
But this isn't the modern concept of determinism and it definitely doesn't reflect theological determinism. In this sophisticated determinism, the means play a role in what determines the ends. In this type of determinism you can't change the antecedent conditions, because they are part of what does the determining.
So you suggest Jones buy's chocolate ice-cream because he is feeling self-destructive, but in my example, he wasn't feeling self-destructive, he was feeling like buying vanilla ice-cream. So you've changed the determinative factor, that which explained the choice.
It's normal for us to think that we can explain our choice. We think we can explain why we do things, why we make the choices we do. (However, some interesting studies have been done that demonstrate that under certain conditions we're actually not very good at explaining our actions. See for example Nisbett and Wilson's paper, "Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes" in Psychological Review 48.3.)
Whenever you say "he could have chosen x because of y" the determinist (hard or soft) can agree and say "Sure, if those had been the conditions, he could have and would have…" that doesn't prove indeterminism and it doesn't prove the power of contrary choice under the same conditions.
Like I said last time, if you try to come up with an example where Jones or anyone else does x because of y then it looks like the y determined the x. If you say y could have resulted in x or z then you haven't really explained Jones' choice or action.
So, like I said last time, the choice or action becomes inexplicable and, apparently, irrational. We are still left with the question "Why x rather than z?" since y isn't specific to either.
So far it's just an assertion, not an argument. And the claim has always been that God, being outside of time, sees all things as present. At least that's how Lewis and, as I recall, Boethius framed it.
As far as I know, there are no arguments supporting the idea that God is "outside" of time. At least I've never seen one and I can't imagine how such an argument might go… the very term "outside" seems to be a figure of speech.
So first we have to ask what "outside of time" means and see if it even makes sense under what we think is the correct theory of time. It seems to me that the correct theory of time and the most obvious theory is the relational A-Theory. But under this theory I can't think of any way that "outside of time" even makes sense unless you think God doesn't interact with the world. God would have to be like Aristotle's unmoved mover.
Saying God is "outside of time" is definitely popular (thanks to C.S. Lewis, in my opinion), but I highly doubt most people have a clear idea of what it is they are asserting and I don't think it helps us understand God better… since I don't think it even makes sense.
As I mentioned last time, choices can be determined. So there is no significance in pointing out that he chose to do so.
That's question begging. If Peter could have chosen not to do it then it means Jesus could either have false beliefs or be a liar. Being God, he couldn't have been a liar… and I think most Christians would agree that being God, he couldn't have false beliefs either. So Peter couldn't have chosen not to do it.
We see things as a sort of timeline too… and we're "inside" of time. I don't get how a timeline changes anything. Trying to make sense of the outside of time thing is really just a waste of time
I didn't use words approximate to that either. As I said, no one is asking them to prove a negative.
But let's suppose that someone makes a claim that would require a negative proof. Let's say Richard Dawkins claims "God does not exist." How is it unfair to point out that he can't prove it??
I have no idea why you think I or anyone else has some obligation to be "fair" to someone who takes a position that is improvable… I'm not even sure what you think the fair thing to do is.
I don't mind debate as long as the other person doesn't mind being wrong.
So sure, your clarified definition is sufficient, but then so is Kane's and so we could have just left it at that. I don't see that your clarified definition is any simpler than Kane's. And Kane's came with examples and illustrations, so that makes it even clearer. Most of the time, clearer is simpler.
I think what I've said previously already responds to this, but let me try again.
You suggest that my example is rigged to make it look like Jones couldn't have made a contrary choice. But when you give examples you just end up cheating, like Kane said.
You say, "He could choose chocolate because…"
That's cheating. It's changing the antecedent conditions.
A determinist can agree that if Jones were feeling self-destructive then he could have chosen chocolate. In other words, if the conditions had been different the outcome would have been different.
That doesn't defeat determinism, it falls perfectly in line with it. Perhaps you're confusing determinism with a type of Greek fatalism.
Some Greeks had a notion of fatalism that said no matter what certain things were bound to occur. So, the classic illustration goes, even if Oedipus was left in the woods to die as an infant he would still have murdered his father and married his mother. That was the fate of Oedipus and nothing could change that.
Even if Oedipus were abducted by aliens and shot off into the Sun as an experiment he would have still come back to life and killed his father and married his mother by some miracle.
In this sort of fate, the end of a thing is determined but nothing else needs to be determined. So, for example, Oedipus can be determined to murder his father… but being abducted by aliens isn't determined.
But this isn't the modern concept of determinism and it definitely doesn't reflect theological determinism. In this sophisticated determinism, the means play a role in what determines the ends. In this type of determinism you can't change the antecedent conditions, because they are part of what does the determining.
So you suggest Jones buy's chocolate ice-cream because he is feeling self-destructive, but in my example, he wasn't feeling self-destructive, he was feeling like buying vanilla ice-cream. So you've changed the determinative factor, that which explained the choice.
It's normal for us to think that we can explain our choice. We think we can explain why we do things, why we make the choices we do. (However, some interesting studies have been done that demonstrate that under certain conditions we're actually not very good at explaining our actions. See for example Nisbett and Wilson's paper, "Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes" in Psychological Review 48.3.)
Whenever you say "he could have chosen x because of y" the determinist (hard or soft) can agree and say "Sure, if those had been the conditions, he could have and would have…" that doesn't prove indeterminism and it doesn't prove the power of contrary choice under the same conditions.
Like I said last time, if you try to come up with an example where Jones or anyone else does x because of y then it looks like the y determined the x. If you say y could have resulted in x or z then you haven't really explained Jones' choice or action.
So, like I said last time, the choice or action becomes inexplicable and, apparently, irrational. We are still left with the question "Why x rather than z?" since y isn't specific to either.
So far it's just an assertion, not an argument. And the claim has always been that God, being outside of time, sees all things as present. At least that's how Lewis and, as I recall, Boethius framed it.
As far as I know, there are no arguments supporting the idea that God is "outside" of time. At least I've never seen one and I can't imagine how such an argument might go… the very term "outside" seems to be a figure of speech.
So first we have to ask what "outside of time" means and see if it even makes sense under what we think is the correct theory of time. It seems to me that the correct theory of time and the most obvious theory is the relational A-Theory. But under this theory I can't think of any way that "outside of time" even makes sense unless you think God doesn't interact with the world. God would have to be like Aristotle's unmoved mover.
Saying God is "outside of time" is definitely popular (thanks to C.S. Lewis, in my opinion), but I highly doubt most people have a clear idea of what it is they are asserting and I don't think it helps us understand God better… since I don't think it even makes sense.
As I mentioned last time, choices can be determined. So there is no significance in pointing out that he chose to do so.
That's question begging. If Peter could have chosen not to do it then it means Jesus could either have false beliefs or be a liar. Being God, he couldn't have been a liar… and I think most Christians would agree that being God, he couldn't have false beliefs either. So Peter couldn't have chosen not to do it.
We see things as a sort of timeline too… and we're "inside" of time. I don't get how a timeline changes anything. Trying to make sense of the outside of time thing is really just a waste of time
I didn't use words approximate to that either. As I said, no one is asking them to prove a negative.
But let's suppose that someone makes a claim that would require a negative proof. Let's say Richard Dawkins claims "God does not exist." How is it unfair to point out that he can't prove it??
I have no idea why you think I or anyone else has some obligation to be "fair" to someone who takes a position that is improvable… I'm not even sure what you think the fair thing to do is.
I don't mind debate as long as the other person doesn't mind being wrong.
A
This may have already been stated but time is a distinguished one-dimensional sub-space of spacetime. In other words it is a dimension of our universe and allows matter to exist and in a dynamic rather than a static state.
However, outside of our universe the physical constraints of our universe's time dimension are inapplicable. Hence, it is has no physics related constraint on God though God binds himself to events that occur in our time dimension in His Word.
One very interesting attribute of God is that He has, in His Word, and so therefore is able to predict the future though it hasn't occurred in our time dimension yet.
However, outside of our universe the physical constraints of our universe's time dimension are inapplicable. Hence, it is has no physics related constraint on God though God binds himself to events that occur in our time dimension in His Word.
One very interesting attribute of God is that He has, in His Word, and so therefore is able to predict the future though it hasn't occurred in our time dimension yet.