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Author | Topic: The Concept of God -- Need Logic Help | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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I'm sorry to say that I don't think that this argument is very good, nor do I see any obvious way to patch it up.
quote: I think that you are missing a point here. Omnibenevolence is supposed to be an aspect of God's character, not something imposed upon God. Thus in doing what is best God is simply doing what he wants to do - and it is hard to see that as a clear violation of free will. Taking this into account let's look at something you said earlier:
quote: Now obviously the distinction is that God would do the things that he wanted to do and would not do the things he didn't want to do. So, if the only reason why God doesn't do something is that he doesn't want to, then he would still be omnipotent. Just to be clear, not wanting to do something must be the ONLY reason God doesn't do it. If God couldn't do something even if he did want to - even something he would never want to do - then he would not be omnipotent. But simply not doing something he doesn't want to do isn't a problem. So we come back to the point that omnibenevolence is about what God wants to do. And because it is about what God wants to do, rather than God having to do the best thing no matter what he wants there is no conflict between omnipotence and omnibenevolence.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Presumable you mean perfectly predictable to someone with perfect knowledge. However, I would say that the same is likely true for all intelligent beings anyway.
quote: If you assume that Good is itself an intelligent being, above and beyond God then you''re not talking about any recognisable theology.But if you don't assume that then your point doesn't really make a lot of sense. You might as well say that your will is an "instrument of control" by which your personality controls your actions. quote: Whether you go for determinism or not it seems pretty clear that aspects of your personality inform your will. In fact it must be so for you to have any will worthy of the name.
quote: What is really funny is that is that your idea of "free will" seems to be all "freedom" and no will. A being that acted completely randomly, without conscious thought or any concern for it's own wants would seem to be your ideal of "freedom". But such a being lacks free will in any meaningful sense, and might be better described as a slave to chance.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I think that you fail to understand the point. Hunger, as a need of the body, is often seen as something external to the mind. Which would arguably make it a restriction on free will. By replacing it with a desire that is generated within the mind, that issue is removed.
quote: You have a very odd idea of free will. Surely free will is doing what you choose, without external constraints, such as coercion. If there isn't a personality - you - making choices, how can it even be called will ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: The question is not whether you believe that personalities exist. The question is whether they have a negative impact on free will. You agree with Bluejay on this. e.g.
To this I would say, since God has a personality, one of omnibenevolence without possibility of deviation, his free will is negated.
And before Bluejay made his claims:
I think the "God's will" argument is being used with too many free-will implications from the get-go. It is the Will itself which is the very vehicle of control; the method by which the entity is controlled by Good.
quote: This seems to be a diversion, since I am simply discussing the concept of free will. And I have not even said that any human's will is entirely free. All of us have bodily needs, likely all of us have experienced coercion at some point in our lives.
quote: If you want to introduce this idea then it is up to you. But even an extreme Cartesian Dualism will not save your arguments.
quote: You think that somebody has suggested this ? How very odd.
quote: Not only did I not mean it, I didn't say anything that could be reasonably interpreted as meaning it. The issue is that a decision dominated by external constraints is not considered a free will choice. That is all.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Bluejay, I think that you need to explain your position more clearly.
Omnibenevolence would appear to add up to the "compulsory" form of personality (that is Prince Thrash's point) and he says that that negates God's free will. You appear to agree that God's free will would be negated if that were the case. But if God's character does not compel him to always choose the (morally) best option is it not the case that God might make a decision that fell short of moral perfection ? But that would make God less than Omnibenevolent in the full sense of the word. So how do you resolve this apparent conflict between Omnibenevolence and your idea of free will ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: The general concept of free will must be the same in each case. If it is claimed that specific circumstances make a difference it must be argued, not simply assumed. Certainly we can use human examples to illustrate the issues - and should do, since there are no adequately understood non-human examples.
quote: No, I've long regarded this argument as fallacious. Now certainly you can point out that this is inconsistent with maintaining that God has free will, but you cannot assume that any particular person will choose to stick with this questionable argument.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: THere are three basic arguments I could use: 1) An omnipotent being can bring about any situation which is not logically impossible. 2) It is logically possible for any and all free-willed beings to never choose to do evil. 3) Therefore an omnipotent being can create a universe inhabited by free-willed beings who never choose to do evil. Also - and if you feel uneasy about the first you need to consider this: 1) In Christianity, Omniscience is taken to include certain knowledge of the future. 2) This entails that the future is fixed and inevitable, including all our choices. (Where God fits into this is problematic for Christians, but I think we can ignore that issue for now. You could possibly use it to produce an argument that God must lack free will, though). 3) Therefore the entire history of the universe was set at the moment of creation. From that point on, everything that happens is inevitable. 4) An omniscient and omnipotent creator would have known that future in advance and must have deliberately chosen this universe - including every event that ever happens in it - rather than any other.Thus, all our choices were dictated by God at the moment of creation. 5) Therefore God has dictated all of our choices in advance, free or not, good or evil. 6) Since our choices are dictated in advance anyway, it does no extra harm to our free will to dictate that we choose good instead of choosing evil. And finally. 1) The argument assumes libertarian (non-deterministic) free will. 2) Libertarian free will is logically impossible. 3) Therefore the argument relies on a false assumption.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: A non-deterministic model would imply breaks in the pattern. If there are no breaks then it needs to be questioned.
quote: It means that God ALWAYS acts for the best. Absolutely always, And all the explanations I have seen ground it in God's nature. You're the first person I've seen suggest that there is a random element in God's decision-making that might cause him to act otherwise. Are you sure that that is a common religious view ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: That has nothing to do with the point you quoted.
quote: If God created Satan in such a way that Satan would inevitably rebel then God is certainly responsible. Free Will would make Satan also responsible, but can't absolve God.
quote: Calling your beliefs reality doesn't make them so.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Then your problem is with the concept of responsibility. Perhaps you would like to suggest how it should be changed?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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quote: "Foreknown" greatly understates the degree of God's involvement. "Intentionally arranged" comes closer.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Unofortunately one of those is not like the others. In fact given a truly omnipotent and omniscient creator (and accepting the idea of a fixed future) it follows that God HAS dictated the daily actions of every living being whether they have free will or not.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It's necessary for complete and infallible knowledge of the future. It's generally claimed that God has that sort of foreknowledge, so it seems a reasonable assumption. If I were looking for a Biblical example I'd go with Jesus' prediction that Peter would deny him three times before cock-crow. To get that right - involving multiple free will decisions by multiple people - seems quite impressive if free will decisions are not knowable in advance.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote:If the future isn't fixed it can't be infallibly known. It's a logically necessary precondition. quote: Even if Jesus had a good idea of what Peter would do I think that it would be considerably harder to work out the exact number of people who would challenge him before cock-crow. As I said, the actions of multiple people are involved.
quote: I don't think that fallible predictions count as omniscience.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It's difficult enough to suggest that free will decisions are quite amazingly predictable. Even if the last one held back for a couple of minutes the prediction would have failed.
quote: For perfect knowledge of the future to be possible the future must be fixed somehow. If you prefer to handle it by saying the the universe operates deterministically - including all free will decisions - then that's your view. I don't see how it helps you though. The mechanism isn't the problem I'm talking about - although determinism arguably makes the problem worse.
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