Creation Vs. Evolution = Free will Vs. determinism

I think you are just missing the point that there can't be any material from where things go one way or another. If there was any then it would predetermine the outcome, because that is what material does. So there must be nothing there, but this is a material nothing, it is no material, and not no God. As before, it seems you are still using mathematics to describe without the zero.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Have you been taking intelligibility lessons from Brad?TTFN,WK

It is quite clear as opposed to your stated vagueness that you don't know where your choice is from at all. You would inevitably fail the test if you traced back your choice to something material.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

I can think of no better description of Hell than perfect foreknowledge.IMHO, one of the strongest arguments for Theistic Evolution is that GOD would be bored to death if he knew exactly what would happen. Any such existence would be misery for God and totally futile for man.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Oh, I see.Yes, I think God keeps all laws and elements of the universe including randomness functioning accordingly. God has the power to tell all laws to stop or change, which would essentially destroy the current universe.

But this is a human estimation of the situation. You cannot possibly fathom omniscience. Omniscience means that God knows fully every range of experiences that we go through, so he knows what his creations feel to the nth degree. I too think God has an adventurous spirit, but this is an approximation. I think the greatest evidence that God is adventurous is that God provided created beings with the free-will to either choose for him or against him.

Wow, that is a good argument. I wonder why I haven't heard it before? If there is a God, I wonder if he was surprised by the ending to Vanilla Sky? Hrmmm hrmm...one of life's multitude of questions, I suppose .

Yes, in that case I would inevitably fail the test. But I didn't do that, which was all you said was required.What difference do you see between vagueness and not knowing where choice comes from. If I knew I wouldn't have to be vague. All I can give is an account of my own subjective experience of choice, what more can you do?TTFN,WKP.S. Would you like to expound upon your viewpoint somewhat for the other people reading this thread? I don't know how accurately I portrayed your argument.This message has been edited by Wounded King, 07-26-2004 02:16 AM

It is incoherent to talk of your brain causing you to do anything. You are your brain.

That's kind of the entire issue Mr. Jack. You may not be your brain, you may simply be a complex epiphenomenon produced by your brain incapable of choice but with the illusion of choice or you may have an immaterial contribution to what you are connected in some mystical way to, but not physically part of, your brain. Certainly people who believe in a soul or some intangible spiritual element are unlikely to ascribe to your opinion.That aside, the 'you' pushing the domino includes the larger physical presence you think of as yourself which actually does the pushing. My arm is not my brain but it is a part of me.I don't really see how what I wrote said that your brain caused you to do anything. I simply proposed that everything you do is due to physical phenomena in your brain and that if those phenomena are deterministic then so is human behaviour, but that doesn't preclude the subjective experience of choice.TTFN,WK

Fair point. I should have said your brain is part of you. I really meant brain is the source of conscious phenomena.

I think God is as clueless as we are. The universe is only as deterministic as we allow it to be. And our free will is only as potent as the universe allows. I really believe there is a duality of function that allows us to know what we know when we know it and do what we do when we do it. It sounds stupid, but think about it. You can't do what you can't do and you can't know what can't be known. But it seems it's up to us to decide just what we know and do.

Hangdawg13:

quote:

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You cannot possibly fathom omniscience.

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And you can? Omniscience is a frozen bowl of jello; static, unchanging.

Of course not. Jar implied that he knew what omniscience would be like, by relating it to his own experience. If you can imagine what it would be like to completely remove time and space from the bounds of your thinking, you might begin to grasp the tip of what omniscience is like. People often fantasize about if they were no longer bound by gravity and could fly around. I can only suppose removal of more boundaries would be even more awesome.I mean, knowing everything at once is not an accurate description. Knowing everything before it happens or after it happens is not an accurate description either, because these are time words. Removing time from our thinking is pretty dang hard to do, but if God is imminent and transcendent, omniscient and omnipresent, then we have to remove the boundaries of time from our thinking, to get the first inkling of an understanding of his perception of things, if perception is even an applicable word.

Well, even if you know everything you are bound by the limits of time. Now, I agree that, according to the Bible, God would not be bound by these limits and so jar's statement might not hold. The fact of the matter is, however, that some may choose to believe that God is bound by time.I suppose this is all trivial and off-topic, but I just wanted to add my two cents.