h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just a thought I have been kicking around. assuming for a moment that people have free will (as most Judeo-Christian religions say), that means that we have the ability to choose our own path and detiermine our own end.

2: God is onmipotent (again, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition)

Problem: if 1 and 2 are both said to be true then one is wrong. Here is why: If people can choose their own path then that is something that god can not control.

Conclusion: Either we do not have free will or god is not omnipotent. You can have one, but not boh.

But it could be that God has just *chosen* that we should all have free will. In that case, it's not that he's powerless to change it; just that he chooses not to.

It would be a problem if it was *inevitable* that we have free will. Then God would be stuck.

This is no more a problem for God than the fact that the sky is blue. That doesn't prove that God couldn't make it any different, just that he doesn't.

I think we must ask us self this: Does God control all events i the universe or did he just start it like a watchmaker with all the uncertenties and indeterminisem built in?
"Is God playing with a bad dice?"

ok, if what you say is true, then god decided to give us free will, thus he gave up the power to control our lives. Therefore, he can not control our lives (even if it is by his own choice). Conclusion: same as above, you can have one or the other, but not both.

For the record: I am an atheist and do not belive in god or any other superrior being. I think that god is nothing more than an abstract idea formulated to serve the needs of man (ie, the need for guidence, the need for a purpose, the need for a final destination, and most importantly the need for freedom from fear such as death and the unknown). Yes, I do think that the Earth and all life came in to being through chance, proper conditions and natural evolution. When you look at all the stars in the sky and realize that even if only 1% had planets and if only 1% of those had proper conditions for life, it is almost statisticly inevitable that life would occur SOMEWHERE. the fact that it occured here is equal to the chance that is occured anywhere else. It is a statistical certianty that it would happen, it was just a matter of location.

Mmm, I think that's "splitting hairs".

If I write a simulation on my PC, I definitely have the power to control everything within it. In the context of that simulation, I am omnipotent. However, I may choose to let the simulation run its course without my interference. I still have the power to interfere, I just don't exercise it.

Anyway, it isn't a question of God controlling your life as such. It's whether he controls your *choices*. So he may move some electrons around in your bank's computer to make you a millionaire. That isn't interfering with your free will unless he then moves some electrons around inside your brain.

So it's not that God *can't* interfere with your choices; it's just that he *won't*.

(For the record, I'm an atheist too.)

Does the christian tradition say we have free will? Where?

every christian I have debated has always said that god gave us free will or free agency. That is where I am getting this. Also I an studdying religion at Westminster College.

Well, ok, but it depends what people really mean by free will. I suppose that what people mean by it is that they make their own decisions, without interference from an outside agency (in this case god). Also, it means that there is no such thing as predestination, as without interference people's decisions could send history in a completely different direction from that which was uh predestined.

But how far do you go when it is admitted that there are no outside influences? The philosophers, seem to have decided that free will is this: You take a man, lets call him James and give him a choice between A or B. He chooses A and his life continues. You take a big remote control and stop James and the universe in its track, rewind to the moment of decision. Which choice does James make? If you belive in free will, you should say that you can't tell, because thechoice is made free from influence. A determinist would probably say that James's choice springs out of many factors, including his upbringing, personality, phsical health, surroundings (the weather, the music on the radio, whatever)etc etc, and all things being equal (which they are), he will choose A again. And again and again. Now I realise that this is not an experiment which can actually be carried out, or proved, and its not quite how the philosophers put it, but still.

As to god's role in all this. Well, OK your argument about the incompatibility of free will and omnipotance still stands. But I don't want that kind of free will anyway, seems a bit random to me. I suppose that god can get involved in a deterministic decision, by affecting the physical surroundings, the subjects state of mind or implanting certain characteristics in the soul of a newly born, but it works just as well without His interference. And the only way you could assuradly predict James's decision (the 1st time) would be to know everything. Well OK that is god. But not predestination, as it only refers to one decision, not whole course of the universe thereafter, so it doesn't piss off chaos theory either (I think).

Anyway, that is why I asked if the Christain tradition is inststant on free will, cos I wondered what they meant by it.

The problem with the philosophy of free will, as you have mentioned there, is that anything which is random suddenly has 'free will'. Dice landing on a table? Free will. Random number generator being odd? Free will. Plutonium atom decaying? Free will.

The xtian tradition /tends/ to be that man was given 'free will to choose between good and evil, and between belief or disbelief in God'. No-one is predestined to go to hell, supposedly.

I've always liked the idea if the sect (no iedea what the name wsas, but I think it took of in spain) which said that veryone was predestined to go to either heaven or hell and nothing you did on earth would change that. The things they got up to.....

I know this thread is a bit ...dead but free will and an omnipotent God are compatible (well according to Swinburne anyways) plus the how do we know God wanted us to be free: God chooses to restrain his omnipotence (which being omnipotent He can do) when dealing with humans because He is also Benevolent and doensn't want automotons.

I'd like to continue this thread, because it's good revision and a good excuse to be here!

Personally I think free will as metaphysics is a confusion. Ive just posted an item explaining why in another thread under the heading mind body problem. In case you're new here you can access it via my personal space by clicking on my name at the top of this peice.

Best wishes
Sage

just to get something understood: are you saying freewill is a delusion?

Indeed, not. I'm saying that for empirical purposes the brain is a "black box". And that it makes no sense to claim that our choices are not connected to their antecedents. But all of this makes no difference to the way we use the term free will to apportion responsibility for his own actions to an individual. The meaning of the term is the way we use it.

The brain maybe a b.b., but if you come at it from a Dualist point of view, then there is more to a human than just the brain: there is a soul as well, as the soul is the bit that is eternal (if you're a Cartesian Dualist), then it implies that it is the soul bit that has freewill.
Plus, I think it makes a lot of difference in the way we use the term: how can we be said to be free if it's the result of our ancestors. But I may be wrong...

That I have free will means simply that MY choices are MINE, not someone else's. I am reponsible for them. I can see no extra explanatory value in the idea of a soul that can make moral decisions by behaving in a random fahion. I could do as well with a dice!

Aaah! I thought you were implying that due to decisions being linked to antescedents, you were implying determinism... and thus reduced responsibility

I was implying, indeed stating, that free will is not a metaphysical term, and is therefore in a different discourse altogether from the term determinism (which is).
The truth or falsity of determinism is not empirically demonstrable, of course. Its function in thought is purely regulative.
Sage



P.S. I wonder if anybody else gets to read this?

So is it therefore possible to be free and for god to be omniscient?

I presume you mean omnipotent?
The problem is that if God is omnipotent nothing is explained, because the question ceases to be why did it happen? (God did it) and becomes why did he do THAT? (As opposed to something else)
Sage