Can We Experience Relationship With God in a Non-Open World

[Drew]

As most of you are no doubt aware, a central controversy of Christian doctrine concerns the degree to which God controls the world and knows the future. For a variety of reasons, I am inclined to reject the traditional picture of a God who has effectively fore-ordained all events and knows the future fully. Of course, this issue has been debated extensively in these forums and in the wider world.

In defense of the idea that God does not fully "control" the world nor know the future exhaustively, I suggest that it is otherwise not even really possible for us to have a real content-rich relationship with God. In order for our relationship with God to be in any sense recognizable to us, there needs to be a certain degree of "open-ness" in the God's relation to the world. By "open-ness" I means exactly that God has neither pre-determined all things, nor knows the future fully. The very nature of a relationship requires such open-ness.

Consider, for example, the prayers we make to God requesting that He make some change in the world (e.g. a prayer for healing). This action is really robbed of its meaning if the answers are already determined. A "Father in Heaven" that cannot be, in some subtle way, "influenced" by his children is in no recognizable sense a father. I submit that any relationship that makes any sense to us requires true interaction where both parties can influence the other. I think there is a funny kind of insincerity that must be at work if one makes one's requests to God and yet believes that the outcome has been set from the foundations of time.

Or take the matter of "free will". If my actions are not at least partially "free", then I am like a puppet, playing out a pre-choreographed script. How do I have a true relationship with the puppeteer in this case?

A lot more could be said, but I will stop in the interests of brevity.

 

[Drew]

Re: Can We Experience Relationship With God in a Non-Open Wo

I submit that any relationship that makes any sense to us requires true interaction where both parties can influence the other. I think there is a funny kind of insincerity that must be at work if one makes one's requests to God and yet believes that the outcome has been set from the foundations of time.

I realize no one has responded to my OP, but I will take one more crack at eliciting discussion by elaborating on what I have already written.

The issue here is that I wonder whether many of us have conflicting ideas about God, or perhaps more precisely, whether certain ideas we hold about God render other ideas we hold essentially empty of an real content, and therefore of no use to us and others.

Let's say Aunt Mabel comes down with pneumonia. If we believe that God knows for certain what will happen to Aunt Mabel, then our prayers on her behalf will almost necessarily be without heart. This is because if we really believe that God knows what will happen to her and that He cannot be moved by us to "change a settled future", how can we truly believe in what we are doing when we pray? I have read a number of rather exotic arguments about how God, before the foundations of time, knew what we would pray millions of years in advance of our actual prayer, and took those prayers into account when drawing up the settled future (including, for example, whether Aunt Mabel recovers).

This would seem to solve the problem as long as it acknowledged that the prayers of men, acting freely, do indeed influence the settled future that God "constructs" at the beginning of time. However, it would seem to require that the content of history is not 100 % determined in all its detail by God and God alone - it requires that God constructs this history subject to some influences from his created children acting freely, even if these influences have this exotic time shift where the influences (e.g. God's decision to answer "yes" to a prayer for Aunt Mabel's recovery) precede the actual prayer by millions of years.

Returning to the act of prayer itself. I think that we must believe that we are "free" agents in respect to the content of our prayers. If we believe that we are pre-destined to pray that prayer and that the outcome of Aunt Mabel's condition is beyond our capability to influence as free agents, our prayers will be mechanical and without passion.

 

[Novum]

Re: Can We Experience Relationship With God in a Non-Open Wo

This has the potential to get into some heavy free will vs. determinism discussion, but I'm guessing that that's not the direction you want this to take. ;)

Returning to the act of prayer itself. I think that we must believe that we are "free" agents in respect to the content of our prayers. If we believe that we are pre-destined to pray that prayer and that the outcome of Aunt Mabel's condition is beyond our capability to influence as free agents, our prayers will be mechanical and without passion.

It sounds, to me, like you're saying "I have to believe we are free agents, because I don't like how the alternative sounds". Have you any evidence, or any reason to believe, that we are not deterministic (as is predicted by science), other than the potential consequences to your prayer?

 

[JM]

Nov hit the nail on the head.

Phi 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

 

[Drew]

It sounds, to me, like you're saying "I have to believe we are free agents, because I don't like how the alternative sounds". Have you any evidence, or any reason to believe, that we are not deterministic (as is predicted by science), other than the potential consequences to your prayer?

Are you sure that science really predicts that we are "deterministic". I certainly do not see the present scientific model of the world as asserting this. As you correctly assume, the purpose of this thread was not to get into a "free will vs determinism" debate, but I do not mind getting into that at all.

I assume that you have some familiarity with quantum mechanics. My understanding is that this element of physical theory asserts that some events (in particular atomic level events) are not deterministic in the traditional sense but are rather indeterministic in the specific sense that an element of randomness is involved in the determination of "what will happen next". Quantum mechanics asserts that "God plays dice with the universe". Contrary to the view of several hundred years ago, a knowledge of the complete state of everything in the universe at a point in time, combined with a complete knowledge of the laws of physics, will not allow us to determine the complete future evolution of the universe. Some events "depend on the how the dice roll". Although Einstein did not feel comfortable with this element of randomness, the empirical evidence supporting quantum mechanics is indeed impressive.

I speculate that our description of the world is ontologically incomplete. And by this I mean that there are one or more fundamental building blocks that I think are missing from our set of "irreducible quantities that exist". I propose that "free moral agency" is one such building block and that there is no contradiction to any presently accepted scientific theory that rules this possibility out. So I believe that along with leptons, gluons, the strong nuclear force, etc (whatever), there are "free will entities" in our universe that are not deterministically reducible to other things.

I think that the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics gives us the option of legitimately "inserting" free will into our picture of the world. I propose that free will agents really underlie the seeming randomness of quantum mechanics. I could go an at length about what I mean here, but will not do so for the sake of space. In short, I propose that free will agents influence the rest of the physical world through such seeming random events, but that the mechanisms involved are extremely subtle, and are hence hidden from us at present.

Consider an analogy to chaos effects. Incredibly tiny and seemingly inconsequential events (such as a butterfly flapping its wings once) can be the "determining" factor in the ultimate creation of a massive hurricane. I speculate that free will agents operate through "directing" what presently appear to be "random" events at the quantum level.

So, in conclusion for now, I see present physical law as not ruling out the existence of free moral agents as an elementary feature of the universe.

 

[hybrid]

hello drew,

my answer to your question in the title of this thread is yes. We can Experience Relationship With God in a Non-Open World. as a matter of fact, it is necessary in our faith to believe that some things are not open to anything but god.

let me list some useful beliefs that are not open because god ordained it.

1. satan will be finally get rid of
2. good will finally triumph over evil
3. church will endure and overcome
4. god can keep you safe until the last day
5. no coup d'etat can ever succeed in heaven


to name a few. and anyone is free to add to the list.


as to the rest of events, god set laws to take care of it.



.

 

[Novum]

Are you sure that science really predicts that we are "deterministic". I certainly do not see the present scientific model of the world as asserting this. As you correctly assume, the purpose of this thread was not to get into a "free will vs determinism" debate, but I do not mind getting into that at all.

I assume that you have some familiarity with quantum mechanics. My understanding is that this element of physical theory asserts that some events (in particular atomic level events) are not deterministic in the traditional sense but are rather indeterministic in the specific sense that an element of randomness is involved in the determination of "what will happen next". Quantum mechanics asserts that "God plays dice with the universe". Contrary to the view of several hundred years ago, a knowledge of the complete state of everything in the universe at a point in time, combined with a complete knowledge of the laws of physics, will not allow us to determine the complete future evolution of the universe. Some events "depend on the how the dice roll". Although Einstein did not feel comfortable with this element of randomness, the empirical evidence supporting quantum mechanics is indeed impressive.

Yes, you're pretty much spot-on with this description of QM. But I will point out that QM appears random to us today. It is possible that a "theory of everything" exists; it's something scientists have long been looking for. It would explain QM in a way that our current theories do not; it would show QM to be predictable just like everything else in the world. If we discover such a theory, then, QM will no longer be random.

But even if such a theory does not exist, I think it's fairly safe to say that our knowledge of QM is far from complete at this point, and for that reason I've always been a little hesitant about including QM in any serious discussion. We just know so little.

I speculate that our description of the world is ontologically incomplete. And by this I mean that there are one or more fundamental building blocks that I think are missing from our set of "irreducible quantities that exist". I propose that "free moral agency" is one such building block and that there is no contradiction to any presently accepted scientific theory that rules this possibility out. So I believe that along with leptons, gluons, the strong nuclear force, etc (whatever), there are "free will entities" in our universe that are not deterministically reducible to other things.

This is a spectacular assertion you're making. Every single shred of evidence and knowledge we have about our conscious experience points to it being a product of our brains, nothing more. There is no accepted scientific evidence for dualism or "free will entities".

Have you any evidence at all for this claim?

I think that the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics gives us the option of legitimately "inserting" free will into our picture of the world. I propose that free will agents really underlie the seeming randomness of quantum mechanics. I could go an at length about what I mean here, but will not do so for the sake of space. In short, I propose that free will agents influence the rest of the physical world through such seeming random events, but that the mechanisms involved are extremely subtle, and are hence hidden from us at present.

How do these free will entities interact with ordinary matter? If they are the reason that QM is random, then how do they explain free will except by making free will itself to be random?

Consider an analogy to chaos effects. Incredibly tiny and seemingly inconsequential events (such as a butterfly flapping its wings once) can be the "determining" factor in the ultimate creation of a massive hurricane. I speculate that free will agents operate through "directing" what presently appear to be "random" events at the quantum level.

Yes, I'm familiar with chaos theory. But I can't start to even speculate about the effects, composition, or much of anything else about your free will particles until you can show me (and this forum, and the rest of the world) that they exist outside the realm of your personal "I believe" world.

 

[Novum]

1. satan will be finally get rid of
2. good will finally triumph over evil
3. church will endure and overcome
4. god can keep you safe until the last day

God is sure letting Satan run free, causing all kinds of trouble, isn't he? You'd think that a truly merciful god would point his divine finger and de-atomize the sucker once and for all, instead of letting all this evil and suffering continue.

But, hey, I guess that's all a part of his divine plan, right? :roll:

5. no coup d'etat can ever succeed in heaven

Didn't that already happen though, when Satan flipped God off and left to find a place of his own?

 

[Drew]

This is a spectacular assertion you're making. Every single shred of evidence and knowledge we have about our conscious experience points to it being a product of our brains, nothing more. There is no accepted scientific evidence for dualism or "free will entities".

Have you any evidence at all for this claim?

I agree that I am making a "spectacular" assertion. I do not agree with your claim that " Every single shred of evidence and knowledge we have about our conscious experience points to it being a product of our brains, nothing more". Rather than try to provide the argument here, I would, at least for the present, refer you to the Australian philosopher David Chalmers, who while certainly not a "substance" dualist like Descartes, makes a very serious anti-materialist case in specific relation to the specific issue of human consciousness (admittedly this is not the same things as free will and I am certainly aware of the so-called "interaction problem" that has been the traditional downfall of dualism).

Chalmers, a serious and well-respected philosopher (and seemingly no theist) argues conscious experience cannot be reduced to the merely "physical" and proposes that consciousness is an irreducible fundamental property of the universe, having basically the same ontological status as time, matter, and energy. I would not want to misrepresent Chalmers as a "substance dualist" like Descarte - I believe that he is considered to be what is called a "property dualist".

I am speculating more or less on the fly, but I would add that I suspect my views about this matter do not qualify as those of a full-on dualist as you seem to think they do. Further explanations will need to wait.

Hopefully as time permits, I will post more material of my own and deal with your other comments about my post. Thanks for you interest.

 

[Novum]

I agree that I am making a "spectacular" assertion. I do not agree with your claim that " Every single shred of evidence and knowledge we have about our conscious experience points to it being a product of our brains, nothing more". Rather than try to provide the argument here, I would, at least for the present, refer you to the Australian philosopher David Chalmers, who while certainly not a "substance" dualist like Descartes, makes a very serious anti-materialist case in specific relation to the specific issue of human consciousness (admittedly this is not the same things as free will and I am certainly aware of the so-called "interaction problem" that has been the traditional downfall of dualism).

Chalmers, a serious and well-respected philosopher (and seemingly no theist) argues conscious experience cannot be reduced to the merely "physical" and proposes that consciousness is an irreducible fundamental property of the universe, having basically the same ontological status as time, matter, and energy. I would not want to misrepresent Chalmers as a "substance dualist" like Descarte - I believe that he is considered to be what is called a "property dualist".

I'm the first one to defend philosophy when it's accused of being irrelevant or useless, but I cannot agree with its use as a scientific tool for discovering facts about our world. If these "Free will particles" do indeed exist, they will be discovered not by navel-gazing philosophers sitting by a fireplace, but by hardworking scientists in labs. Until solid, independently verifiable evidence is produced, I see no reason why I - or any rational, critical thinking person - should take your particles as anything more than a story.

I am speculating more or less on the fly, but I would add that I suspect my views about this matter do not qualify as those of a full-on dualist as you seem to think they do. Further explanations will need to wait.

Hopefully as time permits, I will post more material of my own and deal with your other comments about my post. Thanks for you interest.

Fair enough. ;)

By the way, I don't want to be seen as coming across harshly. But for a skeptic like myself, there is no belief without evidence.

 

[lovely]

Drew wrote:

In defense of the idea that God does not fully "control" the world nor know the future exhaustively, I suggest that it is otherwise not even really possible for us to have a real content-rich relationship with God. In order for our relationship with God to be in any sense recognizable to us, there needs to be a certain degree of "open-ness" in the God's relation to the world. By "open-ness" I means exactly that God has neither pre-determined all things, nor knows the future fully. The very nature of a relationship requires such open-ness.

As far as God not knowing the future exhaustively, do you believe this is because He chooses not to, or because He is incapable of doing so? I'd like to apply the same question in reference to His being in control....because He chooses not to, or because He isn't capable?

If He chooses not to know the future in a complete way, or to be in control of it, in order to obtain a more "open" relationship with man, then it seems that the nature of this relationship is built on something false. Why would He send His Son to die if He was willing to change His nature?God is not being Himself in this case, or true to His nature, but rather letting Himself be changed, or dictated to, by man’s limited ability, understanding, and Sinful nature. This does not make for a more recognizable relationship. This is no relationship at all. This is a manipulation in the very least, and a lie at best.

Where do we draw the line in God's limitations, and at what point does He just cease to be God because of this breakdown in His power?If God can create, then why not control? If God can know part of the future, then why not all? Why doesn't He have the power to know all, if some? It would seem to me that the natural flow to this partial power of God would lead to no God. If God does not know all, then He knows none. If God can not control, then He can not create. And if God can not create, then who is He to man? And if God does not know the future, or control the future, then prophecy is impossible, and there is no assurance that His plan will succeed. There is no hope of salvation. And there is nothing to support that the Gospel is true. How would God know? How can He will it to happen without control? If God's power is limited in control, or knowing of the complete future, then He would merely just be confidant, or guessing, that His eternal puposes would actully be fufilled. He would be like man.

If God is supreme, and true, then He is the Creator, the Supreme Authority, All-Knowing, All-Seeing, Ever-Present, etc. These things are what He says He is. Why would He limit them to suit man, or disguise Himself to make Himself better known to man...that is a contradiction, and makes no sense. And, it would make God a liar, and powerless. I do not believe that Scripture supports what you are saying at all. Partial truth of God’s nature, or partial truth of Scripture, does not clear things up, or make a relationship with God more possible. It only serves to point man in the wrong direction, and prevent him from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.

2. If God is incapable of knowing, or controlling, the future, then He can not know, or will, that what He says will come to pass actually happen. If He can not know, then I can not know. In this case there is no truth, only opinion. He can not truly save us under these circumstances. His Word can not be true either, especially the prophecies. Christ could not have been predicted, and the prophecies surrounding His birth, death, and resurrection could not have been fulfilled. This limit on God’s ability, even minutely, nullifies the Gospel, and makes God incapable of being God at all. A relationship with God in these terms would seem foolish, and irrelevant. Why believe in someone who doesn't really know what He says is true, or have any power to control His own creation in a sovereign way?

God is far above the limits of man’s earthly understanding, but He has provided a way, through Christ, that we can come to know Him. He has given us His Word to teach us. He has set relationships before us so that we can know how to relate to Him in a practical way, as a picture of Christ. He is our Creator, Father, Master, Husband, Provider, etc. These names of God, and descriptions of God, are found in His Word, evident in His creation, and also in the experience of the believer who daily walks in the Spirit with Him. But, in order to walk in the Spirit we must first have Christ, by whom we come to the Father. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The believer must walk in the Way of the Spirit, and in the Truth in order to receive Life. This is how we relate to God, through Christ.

This brings me to the Gospel. What is the nature of man’s relationship to God before He knows Christ? He is separated from Him because of Sin, and his master is the enemy of God, and he himself is the enemy of God. This separation is blindness, darkness, and ultimately death, if it persists. This separation prevents man from having a spiritual, and intimate relationship with the One Holy God. What is the nature of man’s relationship to God after He knows Christ? At this point, we can know Him intimately because of the Holy Spirit’s witness of Christ in our spirit. This saving faith allows us access to the throne of grace, opens our eyes so that we can see Him, shines the light of God’s truth, and ultimately gives us life. This is not our doing, but through His saving power that is hinged on His being in control, and having the knowledge of the future. Christ did the work on the cross, and brought salvation to all who believe in Him. This is our relationship to God based on His terms.

This content-rich relationship exists in a believer because God is in control, and because He knows the future. These things are actually key to the relationship because we know that if God is in control, and knows the future, then what He says in His Word will happen, and He has the power to make it happen. His promises are true. Heaven is real. He can save us. Satan has been defeated. Jesus will return, and so on.

This “open-ness†idea is a man-centered idea, and is an attempt to make God fit into a man’s skin. God is not a man. His thoughts are not our thoughts. He created time, it does not restrict Him, or apply to Him...He is ever-present. He is the source of knowledge. He doesn’t have to learn information from some other place...He is All-knowing. The future isn't beyond Him. Nothing that limits man will ever limit God because He created all of it. This is why He has power over death, and the grave. We do not relate to God by making Him something less than who He says He is. This is not a relationship at all. We relate to Him on His terms only...through Christ. We need to be washed, and then we can enter into His throne room without fear, and call Him Father, because of the blood of the Lamb.

So much more could be responded to, but I think that this is the root of what the matter truly is. I wish I had more time. The Lord bless you.

 

[Drew]

By the way, I don't want to be seen as coming across harshly. But for a skeptic like myself, there is no belief without evidence.

The problem with this is that it presumes that the world is put together in such a manner that what I will call "third party objective evidence" is the only method to discern truth. The world is not put together that way. Forget about free will for the moment and consider your subjective world of private internal experiences - the taste of an orange, the scent of a rose, etc.

These experiences seem inarguably real (at least mine do to me). And yet they are forever beyond the grasp of "3rd party objective" characterization. While we can identify the neuronal activity associated with the taste of an orange, such a characterization does not really suffice to tell the story of why the orange tastes "this way" and not "that way". I submit that you and others are tacitly assuming that the only kind of reliable evidence is third party evidence - evidence that can be seen by all.

Yet consciousness shows each of us (privately) a rich world of subjective experience that, by its very nature, cannot be "measured" in the sense that one cannot "make public" any characterization whatsoever of what , for example, an orange "tastes like".

It is important to let nature, not any a priori human commitment to the primacy of "objective" evidence, dictate the terms of what's real and whether nature lets us demonstrate that "pubically" is really nature's business to decide.

I am not sure how this relates to the "free will particle", but I hope it addresses some of your most recent post.

 

[Drew]

As far as God not knowing the future exhaustively, do you believe this is because He chooses not to, or because He is incapable of doing so? I'd like to apply the same question in reference to His being in control....because He chooses not to, or because He isn't capable?

I am not sure that I have a view on this matter. Either way, I think that the Scriptures support both non-exhaustive foreknowledge and non-total control (on the part of God).

If He chooses not to know the future in a complete way, or to be in control of it, in order to obtain a more "open" relationship with man, then it seems that the nature of this relationship is built on something false. Why would He send His Son to die if He was willing to change His nature?God is not being Himself in this case, or true to His nature, but rather letting Himself be changed, or dictated to, by man’s limited ability, understanding, and Sinful nature. This does not make for a more recognizable relationship. This is no relationship at all. This is a manipulation in the very least, and a lie at best.

I do not fully understand this argument and therefore cannot respond to its particulars. Let's say that I agree with the premise that God chooses not to know the future fully or control it fully. This is not a lie or manipulation on the part of God and is certainly not inconsistent with His having a relationship with man.

We are told in Genesis 1: 27: God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him. One of the most central attributes of God that I discern is that of his creativity. So I think it is eminently reasonable that gave man creativity.

Can human creativity exist in a world where God controls everything? I think that the answer is rather obviously "no". And this is where I think people get tripped up (and it is perhaps a subtle point, so no offence is intended) - they fail to realize that the structure of the world does not allow the co-existence of a creative man and a 100 % "no detail not under His control" sovereign God.

I am inclined to assert that even God cannot create a Universe where the sky is blue and is also red. This is what I mean when I refer to the "structure of the world" - things that are a certain way cannot also be another way, if the 2 ways are mutually exclusive.

So if God wants man to enjoy individual creativity, He (God) must give up some of His control - one simply can't have it both ways, by both the very meaning of the concepts involved and the nature of the world that we are given.

This may have gotten off the track from my initial intent, but I think these points are relevant to the overall topic, if not lovely's specific statements.

I will conclude by saying that the mere fact that God might choose to "limit himself" does not make untrue to his own nature. The reason is that He has created other beings in the Universe (us), and limiting his nature is the unavoidable consequence of giving those beings any kind of "real" (creative) role in the world.

If God is in control of everything, I do not see how this cannot lead to the conclusion that we are puppets, and I do not see how a puppet can have a relationship with anyone (at least not one that is sensible to us)

 

[Drew]

By the way, I don't want to be seen as coming across harshly. But for a skeptic like myself, there is no belief without evidence.

The problem with this is that it presumes that the world is put together in such a manner that what I will call "third party objective evidence" is the only method to discern truth.

Sorry Novum - in my post above, I may have inferred too much from your statement. I assumed that you meant that there is no belief without "objective 3rd party" (publically accessible evidence) evidence. Perhaps this what you meant, perhaps not.

In any event, and despite the content of my previous post, I am not necessarily saying that the inclusion of what you have called a "free will particle" is beyond the reach inclusion in the domain of that which is subject to such "3rd party" (public) testing and verification.

This is an incredibly complex issue and it is hard to express one's ideas in a forum like this (and especially since I am "making this up as I go" in the sense that before responding to your first post in this thread, I only had an "intuition" that free will can be sensibly introduced to a robust and rational description of the world).

 

[hybrid]

1. satan will be finally get rid of
2. good will finally triumph over evil
3. church will endure and overcome
4. god can keep you safe until the last day

God is sure letting Satan run free, causing all kinds of trouble, isn't he? You'd think that a truly merciful god would point his divine finger and de-atomize the sucker once and for all, instead of letting all this evil and suffering continue.

But, hey, I guess that's all a part of his divine plan, right? :roll:

i said one who acknowledged the existence of god must neccesitate to believe what i enumerated if he has to make sense of his faith. i mean there is no sense in believing to a saviour who can not saved you in the end.

Didn't that already happen though, when Satan flipped God off and left to find a place of his own?

but what if your just living in a matrix? ;-)


.

 

[Drew]

Where do we draw the line in God's limitations, and at what point does He just cease to be God because of this breakdown in His power?If God can create, then why not control? If God can know part of the future, then why not all? Why doesn't He have the power to know all, if some? It would seem to me that the natural flow to this partial power of God would lead to no God. If God does not know all, then He knows none. If God can not control, then He can not create. And if God can not create, then who is He to man? And if God does not know the future, or control the future, then prophecy is impossible, and there is no assurance that His plan will succeed. There is no hope of salvation. And there is nothing to support that the Gospel is true. How would God know? How can He will it to happen without control? If God's power is limited in control, or knowing of the complete future, then He would merely just be confidant, or guessing, that His eternal puposes would actully be fufilled. He would be like man.

I do not see how this line of reasoning works. You seem to be arguing that if we say that God's control is somehow "partial", this leads to the conclusion that there is no God. How does that work? Are you saying it is logically impossible for there to be a God that has given up some of his control? Please provide the argument for this. It appears to me that you are taking a very human view of how God must be, and are not accounting for the fact that the Scriptures clearly show a God that can be influenced. Consider the story of Moses talking God out of smiting the people. How is that not an example of God changing his mind?

It demonstrably not correct to claim that a limited God cannot assure the success of his plans. Let's say that I am playing one on one soccer with a little kid. When he has the ball, it is obvious that I do not control what he does - he could go left, he could go right, he could try to kick the ball over my head and run past me to retrieve the ball and go on to score. The child clearly has some freedom, and I clearly don't have 100% control.

And yet I can always prevail if my desire is be beat this child. I would think that this would be obvious. If my skills and speed are so superior to those of the child, I can always respond to any of his actions and still win the game.

 

[JM]

If I had to choose between putting a saloon or a liberal church on a corner, I'd choose the saloon every time. People who drink up the pay check in the saloon are less likely to become Pharisees, thinking that they don't need the Great Physician, than those who weekly swill the soporific doctrine of man's goodness. - Jay Adams

quote: The Belief in Libertarian Free Will Destroys Moral Responsibility – Walls and Dongell make a strong case that our judicial system is based on the commonsense view of libertarian freedom since the lawyers often defend the degree of guilt of clients based on whether they were coerced, their upbringing, emotional state and the like. These kind of conditions indeed often make people less culpable if their inability made them so they could not have done otherwise. If criminals could have made different choices than they did, i.e. if they were coerced into making a bad choice, then we all agree they would not be as legally responsible for their crime. While it is true that coercion often plays a role in the legal degree of punishment, but this only scratches the surface of the matter. Consider the opposite that if criminals just chose to commit a crime but had no intent or motives for it at all then the lawyer would be forced to plead insanity for his client before the court. If the choice to commit a crime were not based and caused ultimately on a reason, desire or motive then he would have to be absolved from guilt because he would not be responsible for it. If one chose to murder someone simply because he chose to it would be a sign of sickness not responsibility. Libertarian free will, therefore, destroys responsibility. Moral responsibility exists, not in spite of, but because our choices have reasons, motives, intent. Only the determinist, therefore, upholds moral responsibility. Can we be held responsible for doing something we do not want to do?

Furthermore, inability usually does not diminish culpability in a moral decision. If a human were asked to fly and they could not due to their physical limitations, we could not justly blame them for their inability, but if someone were to borrow $100 million and squander it in a week of wild living in Vegas, his inability to repay would not alleviate his responsibility. Therefore what we ought to do morally does not always imply that we can, and yet we remain culpable. God commands that we perfectly obey the Ten Commandments. Our inability to do so morally does not take away our moral guilt because our inability is moral and intentional. We wanted to disobey. In fact, Paul clearly shows that the intent of the divine legislation is to reveal sin, not to show that we have the moral ability to keep it. In other words, it reveals that we are impotent to obey the law, stripping up of all hope from ourselves, so we can only throw ourselves on God’s mercy. We inherited Adam’s guilt and freely choose to continue in rebellion. Adam has federally represented all of us, and we agree with his choice every time we sin, so our inability to repay the debt to God does not alleviate us of responsibility. Can anyone claim we are not guilty of a crime by saying “sorry judge, Adam made me do it.†No, we ourselves are guilty when we choose to commit a crime. http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/a ... arian.html

"But what if the foreknowledge of God, and the liberty of the will cannot be reconcilled by man? Shall we therefore deny a perfection in God to support a liberty in ourselves? Shall we rather fasten ignorance upon God, and accuse Him of blindness to maintain our liberty?" From the book Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God," --STEPHEN CHARNOCK

;-)

 

[Drew]

Walls and Dongell make a strong case that our judicial system is based on the commonsense view of libertarian freedom since the lawyers often defend the degree of guilt of clients based on whether they were coerced, their upbringing, emotional state and the like. These kind of conditions indeed often make people less culpable if their inability made them so they could not have done otherwise. If criminals could have made different choices than they did, i.e. if they were coerced into making a bad choice, then we all agree they would not be as legally responsible for their crime.

Fine.

If the choice to commit a crime were not based and caused ultimately on a reason, desire or motive then he would have to be absolved from guilt because he would not be responsible for it. If one chose to murder someone simply because he chose to it would be a sign of sickness not responsibility. Libertarian free will, therefore, destroys responsibility.

This argument rests on a very dubious implicit assumption - namely that it is even possible for a crime to be committed in the absence of a reason, desire, or motive. This is highly questionable and I would think readers would see the assumption as obviously false - all actions have reasons, desires, and motives.

 

[Drew]

Furthermore, inability usually does not diminish culpability in a moral decision. If a human were asked to fly and they could not due to their physical limitations, we could not justly blame them for their inability, but if someone were to borrow $100 million and squander it in a week of wild living in Vegas, his inability to repay would not alleviate his responsibility. Therefore what we ought to do morally does not always imply that we can, and yet we remain culpable

I do not want to make one post overly long. I may have some agreement with some of the stuff that is towards the end of JM's post (e.g. where the author talks about man "choosing" to continue in rebellion). It is indeed possible that JM and I are not as far apart on this as I have thought - we may some misunderstandings about terminology. So please consider the following material to be a critique of what I consider to be a dubious example, and not necessarily as a critique of what is said later in the post - which I hope to address.

The quoted material is a little confusing to me. Of course, the guy who squanders the money is still culpable even though he has no money to pay back. However, this certainly is not an argument that has any legitimacy in support of the idea that we should be held culpanble for actions that we had no control over committing in the first place. The example of the guy who borrows the $$$ does not make any claim about whether he had control over borrowing the money.

I submit this rather curious argument tries to gain its purchase by leveraging the widely held intuition that we are responsible for what we do. This intuition, of course, rests on the widely held view (among the masses) that we are free in our actions. However, the argument then illicitly claims to have shown that we are responsible for acts for which we did not have the freedom to do otherwise.

In the above example, inability to pay for his crime does not, we all would agree, make the man any less culpable for his act. But it certainly does not follow that he is culpable if he had no control over committing the act in the first place.

 

[Drew]

God commands that we perfectly obey the Ten Commandments. Our inability to do so morally does not take away our moral guilt because our inability is moral and intentional. We wanted to disobey. In fact, Paul clearly shows that the intent of the divine legislation is to reveal sin, not to show that we have the moral ability to keep it. In other words, it reveals that we are impotent to obey the law, stripping up of all hope from ourselves, so we can only throw ourselves on God’s mercy. We inherited Adam’s guilt and freely choose to continue in rebellion. Adam has federally represented all of us, and we agree with his choice every time we sin, so our inability to repay the debt to God does not alleviate us of responsibility. Can anyone claim we are not guilty of a crime by saying “sorry judge, Adam made me do it.†No, we ourselves are guilty when we choose to commit a crime.

Now this is interesting and confusing to me at the same time. It seems like this is something that I can agree with, although it seems to do away with "total depravity" and the Calvinist take on sovereignty, at least how I understand these doctrines - and perhaps my understanding is incorrect.

When the author makes statements like "our inability is moral and intentional", "we wanted to disobey", "we freely choose to continue in rebellion", "we agree with his (Adam's) choice, and "we choose to commit a crime", he will be understood by the reader as asserting the possibility of choosing otherwise - to say that we freely choose or that we engage in intentional behaviour unavoidably leads to this conclusion, for that is what these phrases imply in the collective english-speaking world.

I have no problem with idea that we are culpable for not keeping the 10 commandments even if we have no ability to do so, as long as that inability is the result of some previous "free" choice that we make. And the writer is indeed saying that we freely acted to get ourselves into the mess that we are in. No problemo.

Perhaps some Calvinist can explain (precisely please, in one's own words if possible) how the above quote is consistent with Calvinist beliefs about "total depravity" and divine sovereignty (if not other beliefs).