Does god have free will?

I don't have the same patience as Ned and some other members here. You've completely missed the point and I'm not going to tell you what. The other members here can tell you what's wrong with your answer or you can figure it out yourself. I'm tired to have to repeat myself over and over.

I'm not actually a fundamentalist, so maybe I shouldn't be posting here - sorry if that's the case. I just felt prompted to write to have you talk a bit more about free will. If I'm reading your right, it seems as though you think that a God without free will was a nonsense; I just wanted to examine that a bit, if that's okay.Maybe you're right, and the God that fundamnentalists posit can't properly be described as having free will. I suppose they say that he won't ever do anything "evil" (although there seems to be some scriptural evidence that he's got quite an esoteric understanding of what constitutes a good action - but that's another story).But does it matter? I think the idea of free will make more sense when it is applied to mortal, finite beasties like ourselves. Can the concept of free-will be meaningfully applied to something that can do pretty much anything if it wanted?Don't they see God as the ultimate free agent, who maybe short of a square triangle, and a really heavy rock, can do what he likes? And if God has supposedly been chosing to be good since the beginning of time (maybe treating Job that way WAS nice, who knows?), isn't that his perogative?I'm just asking; as you can see, I'm pretty vague. If I'm missing the point, please be gentle with me.

How does God lack this in the Old Testament? He always does good, therefore resisting the temptation to do bad. And in the New Testament Jesus resisted temptation. This seems to be using a different definition of free will than the one you gave above - God has no free will because he can't do bad, whereas Kant's definition was the ability to resist bad, which God does have.

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If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

The flood, for example, was a demonstration of god's lack for free will. It was angry at humans so it wiped out everything, then regreted later on. I don't know if you are dodging the point on purpose or accidentally. Either way, it would seem that you have a very short term memory. Here, let me quote myself. Are you trying to tell me that god's nature is really bad and it is able to resist doing bad?According to Kant's explanation, humans have free will because, even though our nature is to eat when we are hungry and the food is available, we are free to choose not to eat and starve.Ok, let me repeat myself again. According to you, god's nature is good. Since, according to you, god is unchangeble, meaning everything it does and commands is always good no matter what, then god is incapable of doing bad or being bad. Since god is incapable of doing bad or being bad, then according to Kant's definition of free will, god has no free will.Never mind with Kant's definition of free will. What's your definition of free will? Can you come up with one that says god is incapable of change and has free will at the same time?Added by edit:Just for the remote possibility that you still don't understand Kant's definition, let me try to make it clearer. Kant's definition of free will has nothing to do with bad or good. For example, according to Kant, a wild tiger has free will IFF there is a helpless little deer sitting there and the tiger is both hungry and capable of killing and eating the deer but refuses to do so for one reason or other. It is definitely against its nature that the tiger doesn't proceed and eat the deer.Another example of free will, according to Kant, is a mother duck completely abandons her ducklings for no reason. This is free will because her nature is to take care of her ducklings.This message has been edited by Lam, 10-05-2004 02:54 PM

I would define free will as the ability to make choices, which are made with awareness and understanding.

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If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

Before anything, let me make it clear that I am not attacking you or anything. I just want to make something clear. Kant criticized this definition of free will for obvious reasons... for me at least.Say that we have a tiger and there are 2 deers near by. The tiger is fully capable of bringing either one of them down. What we observe in nature is that predators will almost always go after the prey that appears to be the most vulnerable. In this case, the tiger will make a choice to go after the weaker of the 2 deers.Now, you could argue that the tiger knows not the difference and is only acting on its instinct. However, the fact remains that by going after the weaker of the 2 deers the tiger significantly increases its chance of getting a meal and significantly decreases its chance of going hungry. I'd call that awareness and understanding of the situation, wouldn't you?Kant pointed out that such a definition as yours is too broad and wouldn't necessarily only stand up to the test. We know, from human common sense, that the tiger has no free will. It has no intelligence in that matter. However, if we supperimpose your definition into what we observe in nature, we will find many cases where it would appear that animal do have free will just like we do.Now, let's get back on the subject. Can you explain to me, based on your definition, how god is absolutely incapable of change (whether it wants it or not) and have free will at the same time?

Thanks, I want to keep things friendly, but a lot of the time it seems like you are attacking me (in other threads) By awareness, I meant more along the lines of self-awareness, and the awareness that one is making a choice - the ability to think about what you are thinking. While a tiger could think about which deer would be better to attack, it cannot think about its own thinking - it cannot think about abstract concepts. I think that is the difference beteen animals and humans.With this definition of free will, God can make conscious choices of what he wants to do, within the limits of his unchanging nature. Even though, by nature, humans are not able to fly, or lift 100 tons, humans still have free will. Similarly, even though God by nature cannot commit evil acts, or make a square circle, he still has free will.

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If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

Ok, so in other words, god has free will but it is not all powerful. It is, as you said yourself, "limited" to its own nature and nothing more.By the way, when we talk about nature in the terms that we are using (philosophical terms), we are not using it in context of physical capability. We are using it in terms of mental capability.However, even if we use your way of defining it, then god really is not all powerful and all knowing. It is... limited. Well, think of it this way. My rights are being taken away and my life is in danger from people like you. In return, you get a few immature words from me. Which is worse?Added by edit:Sorry for adding something in, but I'm too paranoid to think that you'd be able to understand what I mean from what I wrote above. History stuff.Your argument of physical limits is not generally accepted by people when we refer to free will. To most people, free will is something that is constrained within physical limits.If god is capable of change but he is mentally incapable of change, then technically I don't see any free will there.Your use of humans not being able to fly is a false analogy. Free will has nothing to do with our anatomical or physical limits.I'm sorry to say, but I'm getting the feeling that you are not treating me seriously. It really sounds like you're trying to reenforce your belief of god is good and been making things up as you go along to justify your beliefs. You've been using everything from trying to blame difference in definition to false analogy.Please stop and give me clear concise answers. Otherwise, I'm quitting this debate as it is going nowhere.This message has been edited by Lam, 10-06-2004 10:54 AM

How do you know that the tiger wasn't self aware of its decision to go after the weaker deer? Did it tell you? Did it tell you that it wasn't thinking what it was thinking?

I agree with you Lam. I seem to remember a debate; what makes humans, human?
Where Custard went on for weeks it seemed about this issue.
I believe animals can think in abstract ways. The more intelligent the creature the more diverse it's ability to think.
The data on Alex the parrot illustrated the birds ability to think in the abstract. Humans are very smart animals. But I do not believe for a instance other creatures are not intelligent enough to think about the 'self'. A intelligent dog will not bark at his reflection because he knows it is him. This is a case of a animal with a concept of self.
Many Christians tend to anthropomorphsize things but also claim that humans are somehow more important and special because they were created in Gods image. I contend that a creatures inability to be self aware does not mean it is any less important than man. We matter because we say we matter. But if man where to become extinct tomorrow the Earth would not give one shit.

How many people do that, do you think?You obviously don't watch enough daytime TV.

I actually remember the conversation, now that you've mentioned it.My point has been that self-awareness doesn't mean free will, by our common conception of free will.

Does God have free will? It is not so much that God cannot contradict His own nature as it is that God WILL not contradict His own nature. I agree with you that we should not treat the Bible like a god, itself. As a Christian, I am not for everyone just describing their idea of God as a free for all relative construct, however. We are limited in our ability or motivation to conceive of God how He is vs how WE want Him to be. In Genesis, the reason that God "fretted" about humans becoming deified is because they were not ready for that level of responsibility. In Biblegodland, (as Mike would put it! ) responsibility is not gained through mere human achievment and education. Responsibility is earned through obedience, submission to authority, and relational accountability. A& E failed this test by disobedience, and gained a sort of "knowledge" without the wisdom and experience needed to back it up. Well, a typical "fundie" response would be that God cannot do SOME things such as lie or cease to be omnipotant. One fundie preacher stated that God can never lie because if He called Red Blue, Red would become Blue! I respect the fact that the members of this forum are unafraid to use their intellects and critical thinking skills when discussing the nature of God. (Either as a reality or as a concept) Well, it may go something like this:
God never needs to rest. God never needs to "kick back" because He is having omnipotant fun all of the time by just being God. God never goes contrary to His nature NOT because He can't, but because Why would He want to? His nature is the best state of being, for Him. Maybe the Devil was allowed to exist just as an example of a wannabe deified nature expressed...since God Himself would never do the things that the Devil does in fact do or attempt to do. Yet if we negate the Bible as anything inspired, we have no absolute standard with which to define God. We are left with a world of fallible relativistic opinions. In fact, if we took a worldwide vote as to the best characteristics of God, could we say that the God that people want is the God who Is, or who should be? Does human nature want a God? Or do we seek to be co-creators and co-definers of reality with this god concept in our own minds? And it is a good thing for us that God is consistant! As to that lying spirit thing--If I did not take care of my physical self and let my immune system run down, a virus could be allowed to be placed in my body.(metaphorically) The virus is not good. The virus is not Holy. The virus was allowed to take root, so to speak...because of my rebellion towards good health. By the same token, the lying spirit was allowed to be placed upon the man because of his rebellious characteristics towards holiness. Maybe its kinda like saying that you have free will to date the gender of your nature as long as you only choose guys. You could choose girls. God could choose to be evil. Theoretically. Right? And if you chose to date a girl, you would be resisting your natural temptations, right? Again, we are all thankful for that! Believers, that is. Ball is in your court, Lam. I hope that I am helping answer your topic according to the theistic angle. If not, forgive me pleeeease.

Excellent point - there really is nothing separating humans from non-humans as far as our claim that we're somehow 'better' than they are. We're smarter - but not all of us - yet the ones that have intelligence on par with the animals are still trerated more 'humane' than an animal of equal intelligence. So obviously it's not intelligence that grants us the right to say we're 'better' than non-humans. The best answer I can think of is it's descrimination - as hard as that might seem to swallow.I don't mean to get into the issue of animal rights, but it does go hand in hand with how religions and human's views of god shape the way they think about those outside of their own social group, race, gender, sexual preference, political persuasion, or even species.Oh yeah, and no, god does not have free will given the other defining characteristics he's been given. I talked a bit about this subject on this forum http://EvC Forum: Is God omnipotent? -->EvC Forum: Is God omnipotent?This message has been edited by Chuck Diesel, 10-06-2004 04:13 PM

This kinda defeats the answer originally given by GN. If god CAN but WON'T contradict his nature, then it implies that good and evil is seperate from god. Remember that GN's original answer is anything done by god at all, even if it's commanding you to take a knife and murder all your family members, is good because god IS good. GN also said that god is unchangable therefore it must always be good.This goes back to the original question in another thread. Is something good because god says it's good or does god says it's good because it is good within itself?If god is good, then everything he says must be good. Read the entire thread and you will see that this leads very quickly to the notion that god has no free will. If god says it's good because it's good in itself, then the good exists outside of god's own self. This implies that god is not all powerful and omnipotent.It's not a question of will god do it or not. It's a question of is god capable or not. Again, this contradicts GN. If god CAN choose evil, then the good exists completely independent of god. This is why GN has been so desperate to come up with excuses to justify his answer, that god is good. Well, let just say that up-to-date I have dated more girls than I can remember. You are not forgiven, since there's nothing to forgive in the first place.