Theology III

[Butterbeer]

Lief:

If I'm not getting too longwinded . . .

The west wind doth wither in empathy with the enslaved letters of keyboards everywhere.

The North wind icily howls from it's numbness.

The south wind merely sighs -

...The east wind we do not ask tidings of.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Anyone can assert anything by this reasoning, and maybe they're right, but there's no reason for us to think they're right, so it's rather ridiculous to think they are.

Tell me about it! I've dealt with people trying to convince me god exists for years!!

The problem I have with your "everything is predestined, including god" point of view is that it makes the existence of god rather unnecessary or, at best, makes him a non-creator. If no intelligent being is making real choices about reality, and I'm not talking about the pseudo-choices you call "choosing to be ourselves", then the ultimate mover and shaker is what we call nature.

Matter and energy come together in some ordered way to form this predestined god who creates this predestined universe. And, at that point, you might as well jump into the scientist's boat and take god out of the picture, since he is an unneccesary step in the progression.

I know it's a bit out of nature for me to be arguing for god, but for god to have any real umph!, there's got to be some logical transcendence.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The absence of predestination does not equal the presence of meaning. Rather the reverse, in day to day experience. If someone writing a book chose random letters from the alphabet and threw them together in any which order, there wouldn't be many sales. If a meal were to be just thrown together from random ingredients and dumped in an oven for a random period of time, to us that's not very meaningful or agreeable. In day to day experience, randomization means less meaning, not more, and more predestination, or intentional, purposeful design creates things that to us have value and meaning. The smaller the degree of randomization in our next meal, the more we'll like it (depending on the quality of the chef's recipe and on his good intent, of course).

You are giving to much weight to the end product and not thinking about the process. Is there anything as exciting as reading a good book the first time? Why? Because you don't know how it will turn out. And often you will read it again, and the comment that might often come to mind is "I didn't notice that part or that implication the last time through". But eventually, after you've read it enough times, you put it down for a while, maybe forever. Why? Because it is now a part of you. You know all there is to know about it. And, while you still appreciate it, there is little point in reading it again, until maybe a few years down the line when you have forgotten much about it and wish to experience it again.

The meaning is in the discovery of knowledge, not in the possession of it.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Randomization also means that if some war hero scales a cliff, attacks an enemy fortress at great risk to his own life, and conquers it through his own heroism, he is not heroic. He did that because the randomization that controls his destiny selected that he do it, weighted though the dice might be.

With predestination, on the other hand, even though it was already ordained that he would choose that course and so it was the only one he could take, he still decided to take that course from his personality, which means it came from his personality as well as from God's personality. It came from him as well as from God. So the hero's personality must be seen to be a very well made and good one. That means that, even though the person didn't make himself valuable, the person is valuable.

Concepts like "heroism" spring for the fact that humans perceive free will. It doesn't matter from our point of view whether reality is predestined or not. We can not see the future, so we assume it is not.

They believe that the hero had the choice to either attack the enemy or run. And you can bet that if we knew the hero had no real choice (i.e. his captain threatened to shoot him in the back if he ran), we might have a harder time thinking of him as a hero in the same way.

Humans don't praise things they know will happen. They praise things that surprise them, and the greater the surprise, the greater the praise.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Predestination does not mean the absence of meaning. There is only one outcome, but that outcome is that we all, including God, be ourselves, behave in accord with our own natures.

I think it does. Without at least the perception of free will, there would be no meaning. Even you have to bring that perception into the picture by painting "acting according to ones personality" (eventhough someone else created that personality) as some form of free will.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The modern idea of Free Will exists because of the flawed perception that predestination is bondage. In fact, predestination allows us to be ourselves, and being only able to make the one choice that is most in accord with who we are is not called bondage. It's called identity.

The modern idea of free will exists because we are not omniscient. If we were, and your picture of reality is correct, the word "free will" would cease to exist for us (or never have been created in the first place).

You are right that we would probably not call it bondage either. We might simply call it the progression of the universe, over which no intelligent being or diety has control. It simply happens this way.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I look forward to reading your responses to both this and post 48!

I skipped direct responses to refresh the conversation a bit, but I think I carried the main concepts along. Other than my views about love being more about the journey than the destination, but sis said it well:

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Love and understanding aren't related, except as one may or may not increase the other.

Love and understanding, as sparks of the original fire that is God, are each original and independent. You may love someone without understanding them, and you may understand them without loving them. The first is both more useful and more fun. The second may be more common.

Love and liking aren't the same, either.

If you love someone, you absolutely love them for their negative qualities, as well as their positive ones. You love a child entire with their faults, just the way you'd love them entire with 6 toes, or a broken arm. They don't have to meet an arbitrary standard of perfection, because love recognises the perfection inherent in them. Because love is about wholeness, not your judgement of them a bit at a time.

[Tuinor]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

What we can see all seems to be cause and effect, in addition to what appears to be randomness at a quantum level, and maybe at higher levels as well. But "randomness" is just a term that humans have created to define something that doesn't seem to be a result of direct, or indirect, cause and effect. Thus, we don't really know what "randomness" is, just what it is not, so it may be a lot more nuanced and significant than we are able to conceive.

There is a scientiffic theory about entropy, and how all energy is constantly moving in unpredictable manners and such. But since this is a Theology thread, I won't go into science. (Also because my knowledge on such matters is lacking severely)

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

God creates human embryos so that they begin with a whole host of different genes that each effect how we will act emotionally (a selfish one, an empathatic one, etc). At birth, it is possible for any one of these genes to end up as predominant in the final child (though they all have some effect on our personality), but which one ends up dominant is the result of pure random chance at the point of conception. In addition to this, life experience can, and does, alter the balance of these genes, though not completely.

I've heard of another scientiffic theory on this as well, but my response is the same as before. I don't really have a good answer for either of these statements; however, your second statement poses a question in my mind.

Tell me, are you suggesting (not that it's wrong, especially in a debate) that humans have no souls? Or are you saying that what we percieve as a soul is simply genetic data that determines our personalities? It appears that you are headed in this direction. I could be wrong, though, and I don't want to assume anything.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The problem I have with your "everything is predestined, including god" point of view is that it makes the existence of god rather unnecessary or, at best, makes him a non-creator.

I want to say about this whole idea that I personally believe that God cannot be predestined for one simple fact: He is eternal. One cannot predestine something that has no end. Think about it. God sits outside of space and time and neither have authority over Him because He created them. He has no end or beginning. He has been since before anything else was, and shall be forever. Nothing can contain Him. No barrier, either physical or spiritual can hold Him back or contain Him. C.S. Lewis described Him well through Aslan, saying that "he's not a tame lion" in his books several times.

As I said before, I believe in Free Will. I think that whatever choice I make is because I make it for whatever reason drives me. However, like I also said before, I believe that God knows all the choices that will or will not be made. That being said, in a sense we are somewhat predestined, but not because we are trapped and have no control. On the contrary, we are predestined because we have total control.

I know it doesn't easily make sense, but look back at the analogy of the fire. It's a simple choice on God's part were to start Creation, but when He does, it grows and takes on a life of it's own. And though God may interfere, He cannot (or perhaps I should say "will not", since I do believe God is capable of anything) control it. He's not Pyro from X-Men, though He could be if He wanted. No, He is simply a camper wanting some warmth and firelight.

See, what it's coming down to is that final question that drives all of humanity, whether we realize it or not.

"Why am I here?"

It's a bit difficult to answer, but I think I can say why God made us. In all honesty, I think that all He wanted was a friend. He doesn't need servants, He's got angels besides being all powerfull. He doesn't need wealth; the streets of heaven are said to be paved with gold for crying out loud. He doesn't need praise; He could make the trees sing to Him of His glory if He wants.

What I'm getting at is that God made humans for a simple purpose: relationship. He wanted someone to talk to, to treat as an equal (I said it, now come take me away, religion police) . He wanted a friend to walk side by side with Him; not in reverance before Him or in shame behind Him. And, ultimately, that is what He plans to achive through Christ. That is what I believe.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I know it's a bit out of nature for me to be arguing for god, but for god to have any real umph!, there's got to be some logical transcendence.

I think being able to go outside of logic would give God enough umph!, what do you say?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The problem I have with your "everything is predestined, including god" point of view is that it makes the existence of god rather unnecessary or, at best, makes him a non-creator. If no intelligent being is making real choices about reality, and I'm not talking about the pseudo-choices you call "choosing to be ourselves", then the ultimate mover and shaker is what we call nature.

God's nature, in the final analysis. And our actions come from our natures, from who we are.

Your "real choices" aren't real choices at all, since we don't make them. But also, all that they add which predestination doesn't have is the possibility of our not being ourselves. But if we can not be ourselves, what are we? You see the problem?

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Matter and energy come together in some ordered way to form this predestined god who creates this predestined universe. And, at that point, you might as well jump into the scientist's boat and take god out of the picture, since he is an unneccesary step in the progression.

I know it's a bit out of nature for me to be arguing for god, but for god to have any real umph!, there's got to be some logical transcendence.

Here you're getting out of Christianity, like before when you tried to argue against his omniscience. Our God is eternal, not predestined. And his personality is the "nature" that you say is the real mover and shaker. He called himself, "the way, the truth and the life." But his personality gives us personalities too. There is no nature that is above God or merely includes God. Rather, God spawns the created universe and is all nature higher, himself.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You are giving to much weight to the end product and not thinking about the process. Is there anything as exciting as reading a good book the first time? Why? Because you don't know how it will turn out. And often you will read it again, and the comment that might often come to mind is "I didn't notice that part or that implication the last time through". But eventually, after you've read it enough times, you put it down for a while, maybe forever. Why? Because it is now a part of you. You know all there is to know about it. And, while you still appreciate it, there is little point in reading it again, until maybe a few years down the line when you have forgotten much about it and wish to experience it again.

The meaning is in the discovery of knowledge, not in the possession of it.

I disagree. When you're reading a good book, you read it because you like it, not because of the discovery. If you dislike the book, you'll put it down, because you dislike what you're understanding. If you like the book, you'll keep reading it because you like what you're understanding. If it was all about the discovery, you would keep reading whether you like the book or not. Instead, it is the content of the book itself that draws you, not the reading of it.

And when you abandon the book, you aren't abandoning your understanding of the book but rather the vehicle to that understanding. You have the understanding, so you don't need the "discovery" any more. As soon as you forget the book's contents, or lose the understanding, then you go back and discover again. Because discovery leads to the understanding that you delight in.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Concepts like "heroism" spring for the fact that humans perceive free will. It doesn't matter from our point of view whether reality is predestined or not. We can not see the future, so we assume it is not.

They believe that the hero had the choice to either attack the enemy or run. And you can bet that if we knew the hero had no real choice (i.e. his captain threatened to shoot him in the back if he ran), we might have a harder time thinking of him as a hero in the same way.

If his captain threatened to shoot him in the back, then the guy may not have been acting out of his own personality. Rather, his freedom to be himself was being restricted by the captain. That's an element of force that doesn't exist in predestination.

Predestination says the decision of the hero comes from himself and is in accord with who he is, so he is still to be honored. His personality is superior in this way to other personalities which would not have acted in that way. So his act was still a superior act. He acted in accord with his own identity, but his identity is shown to be really, really cool, so we thank him and appreciate him.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Humans don't praise things they know will happen. They praise things that surprise them, and the greater the surprise, the greater the praise.

There are good surprises and bad surprises. If it was the surprise we liked and not the thing that was surprising, we would respond to both equally.


I'll respond to the rest of your post a bit later.


EDIT: Done!

[inked]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins
I know it's a bit out of nature for me to be arguing for god, but for god to have any real umph!, there's got to be some logical transcendence.

There, proof of His existence! BJ arguing for the necessity of God on logical grounds!!!

And to think I have lived to see this day! Glory be!

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I think it does. Without at least the perception of free will, there would be no meaning.

I don't agree that there would be no meaning without the perception of free will. In all our experience, meaning comes from understanding. If you don't understand something at all, it has no meaning to you. You don't have to understand any of the inner workings of the sun to appreciate its beauty, but to appreciate its beauty, you have to understand colors and brightness. Understanding doesn't produce meaning for everyone, and failure to appreciate is itself the lacking of a different kind of understanding.

So understanding is the root. Discovery is the way of reaching beautiful understanding.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Even you have to bring that perception into the picture by painting "acting according to ones personality" (eventhough someone else created that personality) as some form of free will.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
The modern idea of Free Will exists because of the flawed perception that predestination is bondage. In fact, predestination allows us to be ourselves, and being only able to make the one choice that is most in accord with who we are is not called bondage. It's called identity.


The modern idea of free will exists because we are not omniscient. If we were, and your picture of reality is correct, the word "free will" would cease to exist for us (or never have been created in the first place).

The modern conception of free will would not exist, I agree. God's definition of freedom would exist, however. The scriptural definition of freedom, which I see as the highest definition of freedom, is submission to God and doing his will (not just his plan, but his will too) always. That is what produces real freedom, and that would exist regardless of our perspectives.

When one submits oneself to God and he takes the throne in our lives, he breaks all kinds of addictions and sins. Sins of all kinds can gain power over us and reduce us to slavery so that we have no choice but to bend to those sins. Alcoholism, greed, materialism, sex, rage, etc. are many different kinds of sins that can all gain power over us and which, after they do, we do not control. We are then slaves to sin, bound to sin without having freedom to be ourselves, but bound to do what is sinful.

Submission to God frees us from sin and makes us what Paul calls "slaves to righteousness." Christ banishes sin and it no longer controls us. Wealth cannot control us. Sex cannot control us. Wealthy or poor, we are content and at rest in Christ. With sex or without it, we are content and in Christ. In good condition or in ruthless persecution, with alcohol or without it, we are joyful in Christ. We control alcohol then, sex, wealth and all the rest. They do not control us. In Christ, all sins that keep us from having the freedom to be our true selves, the selves God intended that we be, are stripped away and we can truly be ourselves by fully submitting to Christ's will and doing it always.

It is very glorious, and actually you'll find that Christians who believe in predestination and Christians who believe in free will both believe in this kind of freedom- freedom that comes through complete submission to God's will. That's the incredible irony I find with the position of Christians who argue for free will. While they argue with all their might for a freedom that consists of freedom from God's will, they simultaneously strive to become more and more like Christ, to have him as absolute ruler in their lives, and to have his will ceaselessly done in their lives. *Shakes his head.* It's really incredibly ironic.

They've got their scripture right as regards sanctification and becoming like Christ, and many of them are very, very in tune with his nature, know his will, have him dominating them fully with his righteousness and seek to come closer always. Yet with all that experience of the glory of submission, they are adamant about "Free Will" existing. It's really an incredible irony.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You are right that we would probably not call it bondage either. We might simply call it the progression of the universe, over which no intelligent being or diety has control. It simply happens this way.

It happens according to God's nature and will. He is at the heart of all. There is no nature higher than him, for he is the natural, the eternal and omnipresent. The Law is the Law of God; nature has its source in God. You can replace your word "nature" with the word "God," for the word "nature," in the sense we're using it, is God.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I skipped direct responses to refresh the conversation a bit, but I think I carried the main concepts along. Other than my views about love being more about the journey than the destination, but sis said it well:

I agree with sisterandcousinandaunt that love doesn't always come with understanding. I disagree with him, however, when he says that they are independent and not necessarily related. You love your newborn child because you understand that it is your child, a part of who you are, your flesh and offspring. If you didn't understand that it was your child, you wouldn't feel that same connection or depth of love.

We can love people without understanding them fully, but we love them because of what we do understand of them. If I couldn't see, I wouldn't understand what my acquaintances looked like. If I couldn't hear, feel or smell either, or have any of my senses, I couldn't love the people around me for I wouldn't know they were there. Each level of understanding I have, the ability to understand the language, the ability to see the person's physical appearance and body language . . . all of these are different aspects of understanding that can create love, and the more of them we have, depending on what we find the people are themselves like, we love them. We do not love based upon the discovering process, for if that were the case, we would love everybody. The fact is that some people hate certain other people. This fact shows that discovery itself does not create love. It is what you discover, or what you understand of what you discover, that creates love or hate, depending on the object and not on the process, depending on what is understood and not on the way we come to understand.

If you are mature in Christ, you can come to love everyone because Christ's love flows through you, in which case it is understanding of Christ that creates the love, as well as perhaps loving the beauty of his creation, which also is the result of understanding the beauty of his creation. Indeed, a close personal relationship with God is central to the development of agape, sacrificial love, rather than only natural human love.


I also disagree with sisterandcousinandaunt's claim that we should love people for their negative qualities. We can love people and not love all the things they do, or all of their personality traits. For example, if I had a wife who was sleeping around with all the men in the neighborhood, I would not love her for this negative quality. I would still love her as a person, but I would not love this quality. Loving this quality should not be necessary for one to love the person. Otherwise it shows a complete acceptance for evil as well as for good, and by accepting evil, we do evil.

The same goes for drugs. If I had a wife who was heavily addicted to drugs, I would be doing her a big favor and a great act of love if I convinced her that they were bad for her and then assisted her as she escaped the addiction. By sisterandcousinandaunt's model, we should instead be accepting her activities without ever saying a word against it.

If we were to take this perception of love and go by it, we would commit a lot of evil. We would never train our children, but would instead love them as they are. And as we love them as they are, for lack of training and parental discipline they would turn out as nasty, egotistical little brats.

We train our children because we love them. We teach them not to do bad things or learn harmful habits because we love them, and they benefit a lot from that teaching.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Addiction
This makes it sound as though accepting God was the instant cure for addiction. It's not. In AA-style 12 step programs it's considered an essential first step, but it's not all the steps.

When one submits oneself to God and he takes the throne in our lives, he breaks all kinds of addictions and sins. Sins of all kinds can gain power over us and reduce us to slavery so that we have no choice but to bend to those sins. Alcoholism, greed, materialism, sex, rage, etc. are many different kinds of sins that can all gain power over us and which, after they do, we do not control. We are then slaves to sin, bound to sin without having freedom to be ourselves, but bound to do what is sinful.

Submission to God frees us from sin and makes us what Paul calls "slaves to righteousness." Christ banishes sin and it no longer controls us. Wealth cannot control us. Sex cannot control us. Wealthy or poor, we are content and at rest in Christ. With sex or without it, we are content and in Christ. In good condition or in ruthless persecution, with alcohol or without it, we are joyful in Christ. We control alcohol then, sex, wealth and all the rest. They do not control us.

Perception
Perception is different from appreciation. Squirrels clearly have fun in the trees, but they do that without "understanding gravity" in any way that reasonable adults would agree on. This sentence is absurd.

If you don't understand something at all, it has no meaning to you. You don't have to understand any of the inner workings of the sun to appreciate its beauty, but to appreciate its beauty, you have to understand colors and brightness.

Ego
This is not love, this is ego. I hope, when and if the time comes that you're a parent, you can tell the difference. It will matter to your children.

You love your newborn child because you understand that it is your child, a part of who you are, your flesh and offspring. If you didn't understand that it was your child, you wouldn't feel that same connection or depth of love.

Understanding and love
This is not only wrong, it's offensively wrong. It implies that people who cannot hear the loved one, for example, are doomed to love them less thereby. Or people without "understanding" would have less love. Any experience of special needs people makes clear, that while there may be many things understanding is good for, it isn't necessary to love. Just ego again, (nearing idolatry, almost) elevating a characteristic you think you have to the essential characteristic.

We can love people without understanding them fully, but we love them because of what we do understand of them. If I couldn't see, I wouldn't understand what my acquaintances looked like. If I couldn't hear, feel or smell either, or have any of my senses, I couldn't love the people around me for I wouldn't know they were there. Each level of understanding I have, the ability to understand the language, the ability to see the person's physical appearance and body language . . . all of these are different aspects of understanding that can create love, and the more of them we have, depending on what we find the people are themselves like, we love them.

I never said we should love people for their negative qualities. I said love isn't about judgement. Again, don't use examples from parenting. A mature parent knows how (and why) to correct a child's faults without hating anything. If my child took his sibling's balloon, I wouldn't "hate his thieving ways". I'd feel sympathy for his weakness (having my own) but teach him why stealing, or hurting a sibling, won't get him the happy life he wants. Because hate isn't an element that teaches.

I also disagree with sisterandcousinandaunt's claim that we should love people for their negative qualities. We can love people and not love all the things they do, or all of their personality traits. For example, if I had a wife who was sleeping around with all the men in the neighborhood, I would not love her for this negative quality. I would still love her as a person, but I would not love this quality. Loving this quality should not be necessary for one to love the person. Otherwise it shows a complete acceptance for evil as well as for good, and by accepting evil, we do evil.

If we were to take this perception of love and go by it, we would commit a lot of evil. We would never train our children, but would instead love them as they are. And as we love them as they are, for lack of training and parental discipline they would turn out as nasty, egotistical little brats.

We train our children because we love them. We teach them not to do bad things or learn harmful habits because we love them, and they benefit a lot from that teaching

Same with addiction, again. Addicts don't change because people hate them, they change when they're able to love themselves. That doesn't mean we, who love ourselves as well as them, shouldn't set appropriate limits. But it does mean that being judged isn't necessarily going to get them well any faster.

The same goes for drugs. If I had a wife who was heavily addicted to drugs, I would be doing her a big favor and a great act of love if I convinced her that they were bad for her and then assisted her as she escaped the addiction. By sisterandcousinandaunt's model, we should instead be accepting her activities without ever saying a word against it.

Here's the problem.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

So understanding is the root.

No. Love is.

[brownjenkins]

I'll address one of the more important points you seem to be missing consistantly, and try to get to the rest later.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Even you have to bring that perception into the picture by painting "acting according to ones personality" (eventhough someone else created that personality) as some form of free will.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I don't understand what you're saying here.

You say we are "free to act according to our own personality". For example, if we have a heroic personality, we are free to act heroic. But is not that very personality given to us by god?

All you are saying is that we are free to act as we were designed to act, which is not freedom at all.

You said about the hero:

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Predestination says the decision of the hero comes from himself and is in accord with who he is, so he is still to be honored.

If one is predestined to act in a certain way, it is not a "decision", it is just fate. How can you say that holding a gun to his back is forcing him to do something, yet creating him in such a way that the only choice he will make is the one you want is not?

Basically, unless you have the ability to act in ways that were not predestined, or planned, by a creator, there are no decisions. To "decide" means you can make different choices. If you can only make one decision, you are not free. Or if, as may be the case with humans, you have a mind that conceive of making two different decisions yet, in reality, can only make one due to your "personality", all you have is a perception of freedom.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'll address one of the more important points you seem to be missing consistantly, and try to get to the rest later.





You say we are "free to act according to our own personality". For example, if we have a heroic personality, we are free to act heroic. But is not that very personality given to us by god?

All you are saying is that we are free to act as we were designed to act, which is not freedom at all.

You said about the hero:



If one is predestined to act in a certain way, it is not a "decision", it is just fate. How can you say that holding a gun to his back is forcing him to do something, yet creating him in such a way that the only choice he will make is the one you want is not?

Basically, unless you have the ability to act in ways that were not predestined, or planned, by a creator, there are no decisions. To "decide" means you can make different choices. If you can only make one decision, you are not free. Or if, as may be the case with humans, you have a mind that conceive of making two different decisions yet, in reality, can only make one due to your "personality", all you have is a perception of freedom.

it's all about the tragic flaw. If there isn't a point where the decision could have differed, there's no tragedy. Lief's deterministic system, by eliminating that point of choice, reduces the impact of either bad or good choices.

It somehow reminds me of video game cheats. It's all about getting to the next level...why play the game?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You say we are "free to act according to our own personality". For example, if we have a heroic personality, we are free to act heroic. But is not that very personality given to us by god?

All you are saying is that we are free to act as we were designed to act, which is not freedom at all.

Not by the exceeding flawed definition I think I've already completely debunked on this thread. By that exceeding flawed definition, what we have is "not freedom at all."

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If one is predestined to act in a certain way, it is not a "decision", it is just fate.

"Decisions" are identity, expressions of who we are. The scripture says, "by their fruit, you shall know them," and says that "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." People's actions and choices come from who they are and express who they are for everyone to see.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

How can you say that holding a gun to his back is forcing him to do something, yet creating him in such a way that the only choice he will make is the one you want is not?

Forcing him to do something with a gun is making him do something that he would not naturally do according to his personality. It's a decision that doesn't come from who he is, but rather comes to a far larger extent from who you are. With predestination, our decisions are in accord with who we are as well as according to who God is. We are not imposed upon. Someone forced to act at gunpoint doesn't want to do what he's doing, but he has to do it. Someone predestined isn't imposed upon.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Basically, unless you have the ability to act in ways that were not predestined, or planned, by a creator, there are no decisions. To "decide" means you can make different choices. If you can only make one decision, you are not free.

You're free to be yourself. You have identity.

By your definition, we really don't have identity. Or at least we have enslaved identities. For identity can't possibly come from randomization, or we'd be unable to distinguish between one person and another. Rather, identity must come from parts of us that are recognizably distinct, and that involves the predestined factors, the weights on the dice. Our decisions don't come from our identities though, so we have enslaved identities.

By accepting randomization, we say that we aren't ourselves. By accepting predestination, we affirm that we are.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Or if, as may be the case with humans, you have a mind that conceive of making two different decisions yet, in reality, can only make one due to your "personality", all you have is a perception of freedom.

You're demanding the freedom to be other than ourselves, really. That's the freedom you're talking about and saying we should have. But if I'm not myself, what am I, really?

[Rían]

re God and going "above" logic - I think of logic as reality. And God can't go outside of reality. As CS Lewis says (roughly), nonsense remains nonsense, even if you talk it about God.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

re God and going "above" logic - I think of logic as reality. And God can't go outside of reality. As CS Lewis says (roughly), nonsense remains nonsense, even if you talk it about God.

So you don't believe in free will either?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Not by the exceeding flawed definition I think I've already completely debunked on this thread. By that exceeding flawed definition, what we have is "not freedom at all."

Redefining the word "freedom" into what is essentially "non-freedom" isn't debunking anything.

If you'd just come out an admit that ultimately we don't have any real freedom, just the perception of it, I'd agree with you.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Forcing him to do something with a gun is making him do something that he would not naturally do according to his personality. It's a decision that doesn't come from who he is, but rather comes to a far larger extent from who you are.

But, from your point of view, who I am comes from what god made me.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

With predestination, our decisions are in accord with who we are as well as according to who God is. We are not imposed upon. Someone forced to act at gunpoint doesn't want to do what he's doing, but he has to do it. Someone predestined isn't imposed upon.

Someone who is predestined also has to do it, by definition. Just because you do not see the gun, does not mean that it is not there.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

By your definition, we really don't have identity.

It's not my definition, it's humanity's definition of what free will is. The ability to make choices without outside influence.

From my point of view "free will" is either completely non-existant (everything is determined) or is not what we think it is (randomness exists, but we don't control this randomness). But, either way, we do have the unbreakable perception of free will, thus it makes perfect sense to act as if it exists.

However, if I were religious, I'd have to believe that god has the power to transcend human logic and be able to make decisions free of cause and effect. We don't know what that agent is, call it a soul, if you like. And, if god can have this agent, then there is no reason he can't pass it on in some form to his creations.

The alternative is what sis said: "Lief's deterministic system, by eliminating that point of choice, reduces the impact of either bad or good choices."

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Redefining the word "freedom" into what is essentially "non-freedom" isn't debunking anything.

That wasn't the refutation . The refutation was pointing out that your definition of free will means we're randomized, which means we don't have any control over our own choices, and so we aren't free anyway. It isn't us making the choices, but random chance selecting them for us.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If you'd just come out an admit that ultimately we don't have any real freedom, just the perception of it, I'd agree with you.

We don't have freedom in the sense you're using the word. But that's not real freedom, for the reason I just stated above. Real freedom is found in submission to God, and real slavery is the bondage of sin.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But, from your point of view, who I am comes from what god made me.

Right. Which means what you do is your will and God's will.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Someone who is predestined also has to do it, by definition. Just because you do not see the gun, does not mean that it is not there.

Of course they have to do it, but they do it because they want to, which is not the case in the gun scenario. With predestination, the desire to do what we do comes from us (which, I agree, is also from who God made us to be) as well as from God (which is how he too is predestined to be his personality, just as we're predestined to do what we want according to our personalities). Ultimately, it's God in charge of everything.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It's not my definition, it's humanity's definition of what free will is. The ability to make choices without outside influence.

Randomization is not what most free will advocates have in mind when they argue for free will. Trust me- I've argued with a few of them and have read C.S. Lewis and Chuck Smith. They never mention randomization, but rather say that we are in control of our decisions.

However, I agree with you completely that randomization is the logical conclusion of the Free Will belief.

The statement that we have to make our own choices without someone else also deciding them is the modern "Free Will" philosophy, which not everyone agrees with. So you're assuming the modern Free Will philosophy's definition as the one everyone accepts.

I agree with you that according to that definition, which even many of its ardent advocates wouldn't hold to if they realized it really meant, we don't have any free will. By that definition, we don't have free will. That is not the only valid definition we can consider, though. There are two others.

First is this, a definition quite similar to that which I'm usually using in this debate:

Originally Posted by The World English Dictionary

Freedom:

1) A state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any, or to any undue, restraints and restrictions.

This fits perfectly with the predestination perspective. Someone who is prestined by God lives as he or she chooses and simultaneously as God chooses. The person isn't "forced" by God, but does exactly what he or she wants as well as what God wants. God is in complete control, but the person still "is able to act and live as he or she chooses." He or she is also able to act "without being subject to any, or to any undue, restraints and restrictions." God doesn't restrain or restrict the person's ability to act as he or she chooses. The person does exactly what he or she wants by this model, and God also does exactly what he wants. The two are not incompatible, and predestination and this definition of freedom are not incompatible.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

From my point of view "free will" is either completely non-existant (everything is determined) or is not what we think it is (randomness exists, but we don't control this randomness).

I guess that I agree with both possibilities you mention.

"Free Will," by the definition with which you're using the word (a definition you know my difficulties with), is completely non-existent.

I also agree with 2, that freedom is not what many people think it is. Though I discard your word "we" in exchange for "many people," because I don't think the definition you're using is accepted by everyone. Many Christians, believers in Free Will and believers in predestination alike, hold to the higher Christian definition of freedom, which is submission to God.

But there also is a definition of freedom in the World English Dictionary which is what everyone thinks it is, but also is not in conflict with predestination.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But, either way, we do have the unbreakable perception of free will, thus it makes perfect sense to act as if it exists.

Agreed, if by "free will" you mean choices.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

However, if I were religious, I'd have to believe that god has the power to transcend human logic and be able to make decisions free of cause and effect. We don't know what that agent is, call it a soul, if you like. And, if god can have this agent, then there is no reason he can't pass it on in some form to his creations.

As I said before, I think that is the way you'd have to go. But it is the ultimate meagerness, as an argument. According to this, "free will doesn't make sense, but God doesn't make sense, so that's okay." Which also naturally should mean that religion doesn't make sense, and if religion didn't make sense, I don't know why you'd be a believer . Unless you just wanted a psychological cushion, a manner of being religious that I've always considered to be rather lame.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The alternative is what sis said: "Lief's deterministic system, by eliminating that point of choice, reduces the impact of either bad or good choices."

I don't see how that makes any sense, though perhaps I'm not understanding what he's trying to say.

Choices we make, in my view, are expressions of identity. A decision is one person impacting another with some part of who he or she is. Part of that person's identity touches and may influence the other, depending upon the other's personality. Decision is an expression of who you are that can extend beyond you and change other people's lives. That is a very big difference.

Sis's statement looks to me at present very arbitrary and based on mere assumption. It's just a statement of, "my belief is better than your belief," without any reasoning to back that up.

Though perhaps there was reasoning in the original context. I'm not reading Sis's posts, for a number of what I consider to be very good reasons.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I'm not reading Sis's posts, for a number of what I consider to be very good reasons.

Because I won't admit I'm a paperhanger from Dayton named Earl, or reregister under another name.

*giggle*

I'm sorry. It's so cute.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

First is this, a definition quite similar to that which I'm usually using in this debate:

Originally Posted by The World English Dictionary
Freedom:

1) A state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any, or to any undue, restraints and restrictions.

This fits perfectly with the predestination perspective. Someone who is prestined by God lives as he or she chooses and simultaneously as God chooses. The person isn't "forced" by God, but does exactly what he or she wants as well as what God wants. God is in complete control, but the person still "is able to act and live as he or she chooses." He or she is also able to act "without being subject to any, or to any undue, restraints and restrictions." God doesn't restrain or restrict the person's ability to act as he or she chooses. The person does exactly what he or she wants by this model, and God also does exactly what he wants. The two are not incompatible, and predestination and this definition of freedom are not incompatible.

It doesn't fit at all because god does restrict the ability for a person to act (and thus to choose). He does it at the point of creation.

You said yourself (more or less) that god predestines some to be heroic, which implies that he predestines others to not be heroic. Thus, while humans have the ability to be either heroic or non-heroic, god restricts who has access to the heroic choice at any given point of time when he creates them.

If you don't have access to a choice due to an outside force (god), you are restricted from making it.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If you don't have access to a choice due to an outside force (god), you are restricted from making it.

All those deaf people perversely refusing to listen to symphonies.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

As I said before, I think that is the way you'd have to go. But it is the ultimate meagerness, as an argument. According to this, "free will doesn't make sense, but God doesn't make sense, so that's okay." Which also naturally should mean that religion doesn't make sense, and if religion didn't make sense, I don't know why you'd be a believer . Unless you just wanted a psychological cushion, a manner of being religious that I've always considered to be rather lame.

Just because it doesn't make sense, to us, doesn't necessary make it lame. In fact, one could argue that the presumption that you can understand god in a logical manner is just false pride on the part of humanity.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It doesn't fit at all because god does restrict the ability for a person to act (and thus to choose). He does it at the point of creation.

In that case no one is ever free, whether you believe in free will or not, if you're defining freedom that loosely. For I can't turn into a bird. I can't become a squirrel. I can't become you. So my freedom is restricted.

I'm restricted by my identity to some extent, even if you think we're dominated by random chance, for no matter how much chance rules me, I can't change my physical body into that of a polar bear.

These kinds of identity related freedom restrictions aren't considered serious in the dictionary definition. Of course you can't be a polar bear. The point of the definition is how freely your choices come from you, not what you are in the first place.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You said yourself (more or less) that god predestines some to be heroic, which implies that he predestines others to not be heroic.

Yes.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Thus, while humans have the ability to be either heroic or non-heroic, god restricts who has access to the heroic choice at any given point of time when he creates them.

It's wrong to look at it as "humans" in general having the ability to go one way or another. No one could go one way or the other. "Humans" don't have the ability to be either heroic or non-heroic, but rather each individual human has the ability or lacks the ability depending upon what kind of creature he or she was made to be.

I was made to be a human, so I can't fly. That isn't slavery. It's a restriction, but it's just identity, and identity isn't something we think of as a restriction of freedom because it's a restriction that gives us meaning. If we weren't restricted to being who we are, we'd have no identities and so become non-creatures.

Is my being unable to fly a bad thing? Who are we to say? Daniel Boone was made to be heroic, so he was. Is that a bad thing? Again, who are we to say, and again, it's identity that gives meaning, not randomization that takes it away.

Your above sentence seems to imply this: "humans" have heroism, but some people weren't made with heroism, so how can that be fair? That's what you seem to be saying, though I might be wrong.

But that's like complaining that we weren't made with wings. It's saying, "why did you make me like this, God?" And that implies that God can have no good reason if you don't know it, which is seriously "false pride on the part of humanity."

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If you don't have access to a choice due to an outside force (god), you are restricted from making it.

I agree, but I don't think that the definition in the dictionary is referring to this kind of identity restriction. That is because the dictionary requires the existence of someone to do the choosing or to be restricted, and "Free Will" eliminates the person.

If I was given "Free Will," freedom of complete choice, and if God did not restrict my freedom at all but gave me all the options, then there would be no "me" to select between them. Even if he gave me a limited set of options, there would be only an enslaved me. So this kind of restriction creates identity. If this kind of restriction didn't exist, there would be no "you" to be restricted or free! You seem to think you should be able to create yourself.

To do away with God and become your own creator. You seem to think that God should have designed you to be able to choose what you would be, which means to invent yourself. But the logical flaw is that if you were left to invent yourself, there'd be no "you" to do the inventing!

The greater the size of the restriction we're discussing, the less random chance there is and simultaneously, the more "you" there is. The smaller this restriction is, the less "you" there is and the more random chance. If this restriction didn't exist at all, there would be no "you" at all, but total and complete randomization. If this restriction was complete, as I think it is, then there is no randomization but there is a complete "you."

The freedom definition we're talking about now is:

"A state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any, or to any undue, restraints and restrictions."

This definition requires that there be somebody to do the choosing or to be restricted. For there to be somebody at all who can do the choosing or be restricted, there must be this restriction you've criticized. Hence, identity is not in discussion here, or if it is, it would be considered a "due" rather than an "undue" restriction.

This Godly restriction is presumed in the definition and is not the restriction described in the definition. If it was not presumed, no one would even bother with trying to define freedom.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Just because it doesn't make sense, to us, doesn't necessary make it lame. In fact, one could argue that the presumption that you can understand god in a logical manner is just false pride on the part of humanity.

Okay. Then I believe that the moon is populated by blue giraffes. The belief makes as much sense or nonsense as that of Free Will . Even if one assumes God transcends logic, that just makes anything possible. It doesn't make it probable. It doesn't make it worth believing.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

For those who don’t know, Daniel Boone was a ne’rdowell trapper and hunter of the American Colonial period. Chiefly noted for his role in illegally displacing the native peoples of the Kentucky region, he was also engaged in large scale land speculation. In one incident, shortly after the American Revolution, he lost $20,000 of settler money, ostensibly while en route to registering their land claims. He held a number of small public offices and military positions, but the one time he was court-martialed, he was acquitted. He was a large slaveholder in Kentucky, during one of his more solvent periods.

I just wanted everyone to be sure the definition of “hero� Lief was using was clear.

In terms of the rest of his argument, I was particularly amused by his leap from "I can't be a polar bear" to "God's plan for me controls my choices."

That was a real knee-slapper.

I wish him well,in his NEXT incarnation, as a polar bear. I have no doubt that God, hearing his petition, will grant him that opportunity, next time.