|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 65 (9164 total) |
| |
ChatGPT | |
Total: 916,915 Year: 4,172/9,624 Month: 1,043/974 Week: 2/368 Day: 2/11 Hour: 1/0 |
Thread ▼ Details |
Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Free Will and Biblical Prophecy: Are They Mutually Exclusive? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
caldron68 Member (Idle past 3871 days) Posts: 79 From: USA Joined: |
ICANT writes:
You must be speaking for 'God caldron68' because you are not speaking for the God that I was referring too.
You don't give your God very much credit for intelligence do you. Cheers,--Caldron68
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
caldron68 Member (Idle past 3871 days) Posts: 79 From: USA Joined: |
ICANT writes:
Sure He did He could have let us all pay our own sin debt. But that means that no one would have an opportunity to escape everlasting punishment.
But you're suggesting that he had no choice in the path that he created for man. If God is omniscient and lives outside of time (views all time as the here and now), then he knew the consequences of his actions before he set the system into play. He knew full well that he would destroy all life by flooding the planet. He knew full well that he would have to sacrifice his Son (himself in flesh) on the cross and he knew full well that he would have to return to Earth a second time in another attempt to clean up the mess that he created. Your assertion is that he had no other choice in the matter. That things could not have turned out differently. I simply do not agree. If I were omniscient and could see the outcome of my work before I started, I certainly would not start a system that I knew I would have to intentionally destroy through a flood. Especially if I am a kind, loving, compassionate God. The Bible says this about the flood: Genesis 6: 5 And Yahweh saw that man's wickedness was great over the face of the earth, and that all day the thoughts in his heart formed nothing but wickedness.6 And Yahweh regretted having made man on the face of the earth, and his heart grieved. 7 And Yahweh said, "I will wipe man from the face of the earth, man, my own creation and also the animals of the field, and the creatures that crawl on the ground, and the birds of the air; for I regret having made them." And Yahweh saw that man's wickedness was great over the face of the Earth...... Well, Did God see this coming or not? It seems that the God of the Bible is NOT the omniscient being that you say he is. I'm sure you'll find some dodge around this, but the Bible clearly states that God saw (after the fact) that man was wicked and that he regretted having made man on the face of the Earth. His solution? Drown them all. If God is truly omniscient and saw the outcome of his actions before they were set into motion, a truly compassionate, intelligent God would not have taken this path. Cheers,--Caldron68
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: No, you suggested that only a few people HAD the free will that gave them even the possibility of going against prophecy
Message 31
I am not claiming that the Free Will I'm describing that can exist with immutable prophecy is some sort of universal generality. I'm quite explicitly stating that it's an extreme special case.
quote: However, that does not address my original question. The issue is whether there is the possibility of going against prophecy. Even compatibilist formulations of free will would allow that much. In suggesting only a few people have that capability you are very much going against the whole concept of free will. If that possibility is not there, then it does not matter whether the prophecy is conveyed in a way which does not change our desires, since our desires do not truly control our decisions, which are fated not chosen.
quote: Yet your post did not truly consider the consequences. If that occurs free will demands that we must be able to act otherwise. If we cannot then free will is not removed- since we did not have it in the first place.
quote: But you are still failing to consider my basic point that thinking about these unusual cases lets us consider what may be going on "behind the scenes"
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2728 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Stile.
Stile writes: I originally was simply looking for one situation, perhaps required to be very small and sufficiently uncomplicated. Actually, I think a certain person's specific actions at some specific point (such as prophesying the flavor of ice cream Person A was going to choose) would be much more plagued by the randomness of free will than a general, broad prophecy like, "There will be a big war in the Middle East." Basically, I think God could make an immutable prophecy about people with free will so long as He is capable of seeing all possible alternatives of all possible decisions, and show how some things are bound to happen no matter how events play out. For instance, we are going to experience a major agricultural crisis due to overpopulation in the fairly near future (I don't know if this is actually an "immutable" fact, but let's pretend it is for the sake of this example). This way, God does not have to actually know the outcomes of every specific, future event, but can simply tell that some general condition is going to prevail, because there are so many independent actors that nobody can actually control it or stop it from happening. So, even in my "world of spontaneity," some prophecy would be possible. I'm Bluejay. Darwin loves you.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
PaulK writes: However, that does not address my original question. The issue is whether there is the possibility of going against prophecy. Even compatibilist formulations of free will would allow that much. In suggesting only a few people have that capability you are very much going against the whole concept of free will. If that possibility is not there, then it does not matter whether the prophecy is conveyed in a way which does not change our desires, since our desires do not truly control our decisions, which are fated not chosen. I understand a bit clearer now. Are you saying that "the ability to go against prophecy" is part of the inherent definition of Free Will? If so, then using this strict definition, I agree with you that Free Will is removed in all my scenarios. This is trivially true since the definition of an "immutable prophecy" is one where there is no possibility for the decision-maker to go against the prophecy (or that's how I've been treating it here, anyway). I would say at this point, that you are on the same track as Straggler... using a definition of Free Will that includes something I do not ascribe as fundamental to Free Will. And my same response would be "I do not accept this definition of Free Will". I would then repeat my own definition and ask you to point out what part of my definition is in error such that it is not Free Will. I really don't think that "the ability to choose between alternate futures" or "the ability to go against prophecy" is what defines Free Will. I find these attributes fall into place once we have defined the important aspects. I define Free Will as: The ability to get what you want from the situation presented given that no external being is interfering with your desires in any way. What about that statement is not Free Will? This statement describes the fundamental point of Free Will to me, and it does not include "the ability to go against prophecy". Why do you think that such an ability defines Free Will? Is it because you may want to go against prophecy? Because that certainly is included in my definition. If you wanted to go against the prophecy, and couldn't, I certainly agree that Free Will is removed. But if that desire does not exist, I don't see how the presence of an immutable prophecy removes Free Will. Why should such an additional restraint be put on the definition of Free Will? Added by Edit:
Even compatibilist formulations of free will would allow that much. I just wanted to point out that I have no formal training at all in such matters and your point above went right over my head. I have no idea what "compatibilist formulations of free will" entail, and therefore I do not see how they attribute to the topic. ...sorry, but I have to simply claim ignorance on this part. That said... I still don't see how my definition of Free Will is not acceptable. Edited by Stile, : Hiding from the compatibilist formualations and most other things I don't know
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
Mantis writes: Actually, I think a certain person's specific actions at some specific point (such as prophesying the flavor of ice cream Person A was going to choose) would be much more plagued by the randomness of free will than a general, broad prophecy like, "There will be a big war in the Middle East." Fair enough, I have a bad habit of adding unrequired aspects to my descriptions. How's this? "I originally was simply looking for one situation, perhaps required to be sufficiently uncomplicated." I have no problems with deleting that "very small" part. And I can understand how "very small" may actually add complication instead of reducing it.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: I am being more specific than that. The fact of the prophecy is additional information. If we have free will of any sort at all it must be possible in principle for that additional information to change the decisions we will make. If that is utterly impossible then we cannot have free will. Oh, and I don't have any formal training either. I have, however, read a fair amount around the subject and considered it fairly deeply on some occasions.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
|
Just to clarify: you have no problem with God knowing our future, but only with Him telling us about it? I am not saying it is not a problem. But it certainly is a different problem.
It seems like the distinction is lacking a mechanism. If a future can be known, why can't it be told? Well once those beings who operate in real-time without an eternal perspective (i.e. us) are immutably informed of their choices before ever confronting that choice all possible future alternatives are effectively eliminated. The immutable knowledge of what will immutably happen interferes with the ability to actually choose in time as we perceive it and thus negates our ability to demonstrate free-will at that point. It could be argued that an eternal being passively watching all-time without interfering in any way does not cause this same effect. I am not entirely convinced but it is certainly less clear cut. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
|
admit that this is all that is required to possibly cause interference from an external entity to eliminate Free Will. And if it does cause interference in any way... then I agree that Free Will is removed. What I'm talking about is the special case where it doesn't cause any interference. In the case of propehcy there is no such thing as non-interference. If the prophecy is known to anyone then all the interference required has already been been applied.
Example: I like choclate ice-cream and I always choose chocolate ice-cream over vanilla. An omnipotent being produces an immutable prophecy on my that after dinner I will choose chocolate ice-cream over vanilla. I shrug my shoulders and say "yeah... duh...". Then, dinner comes and I'm presented with vanilla and chocolate ice-cream. I get chocolate. It is this one simple situation that I say Free Will is still present along with an immutable prophecy. You can do nothing other than have chocolate ice cream. There may as well be no other flavours available. If there are no alternatives how can there be any choice? If there is no choice how can free-will exist? Can free-will exist in the absence of choice? That is the question that you need to answer.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.7 |
Hi caldron68,
caldron68 writes: But you're suggesting that he had no choice in the path that he created for man. Sure He had a choice. He could have programed everyone to do exactly what He wanted them to do. But there goes free will. God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
|
Stragler writes: How can we ever know what (decision) they "would have made anyway"? I didn't say it would be easy, or that we could even tell. I said it was possible, that's all. Especially possible for an omnipotent being. So you are saying that our eternal omnipotent being knows what a given individual would have done in the same situation IF the prophecy was not in effect. So interfering in the realtime decision making capabilities of the individual in question by making the prophecy and thus negating all other possibilities makes no difference? Is that right? You do not actually disagree that prophecy eliminates all alternatives, all other possibilities? You do not disagree that choice has actually been eliminated in the strict and absolute sense? Is that right? You instead claim that in some alternate reality where the agent of free-will never actually existed it is known what they would have done in a given situation? Is that your version of free-will?
If you want to say that I am wrong, you have to take what I'm saying and show that it is wrong. You are still unable to do that. How can an agent of free-will demonstate their free-will regarding a choice that they never actually encounter or a question that they are never asked? Your versuion of free-will suggests that we are pre-programmed with a response for any given situation and that whether we ever encounter that situation of not our response can be known and prophecised by an eternal being of some kind. That is about as un-free as it is possible to be surely?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
caldron68 Member (Idle past 3871 days) Posts: 79 From: USA Joined: |
ICANT writes:
Sure He had a choice. He could have programed everyone to do exactly what He wanted them to do. But there goes free will.
Sure he could have... I believe that he could have created a path for man that allowed for free will and would not require mass murder through a global flood. That is if he truly is a loving and compassionate God..... The point of my previous post was that he could have done this if he is truly omniscient. Evidently he is not, and the Genesis 6:5-7 backs this assertion up. Now, would you like to address this point or are you just going to provide another flippant answer to this post too? Cheers,--Caldron68
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
felixmab Junior Member (Idle past 5577 days) Posts: 2 Joined: |
Free Will?
This particular piece of *BLACK PROPAGANDA* demonstrated the power of the internet to spread an unconventional message to unsuspecting targets...It also drove home the point that the supernatural can never be eradicated from our existence without a price... "Nostradamus predicts the collapse of the capitalist system and the world-wide socialist revolution did you ever hear of the 1st amendment? or will you censor me likeeveryone you disagree with... the vote of the deluded, deceived, and brainwashed masses is notvalid.... it is a SHAM DEMOCRACY! FINAL DRAFT FOR WORLD-WIDE CIRCULATION: edition 1568 is the Prophetic Work see how we stopped the MILLION DOLLAR PARANORMAL CHALLENGE and causedthe president of American Atheists, Ellen Johnson, to quit her job. those headless babbling idiots in Washington and Ottawa are completelyoblivious to the *REAL WORLD* visit *******URL BELOW********* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Hez25fFrg http://nostradamus.0catch.com to see what the REAL WORLD looks like Guess what is inside angel's envelope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIhSBMzPjrc ______________| | HuhHuh?? | ______________ and to wrap up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4WoXpnf7-I and this is for your CENSORSHIP OF THE TRUTH, Politico WannabeFrauds..... No MERCY FOR THE BANKS Last Chance to GET OUT....TICK TOCK TICK TOCK http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=C09_bjBVF1o it's a question of time before the END OF CAPITALISM _______ a little taste of the HEGELIAN DIALECTIC..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytDq-4NIXCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv-NPFRUV8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFGld1dESJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L5I3JyPWhc&feature=related __________________________ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1S5CRcqJQo&feature=related Loser Randi *NULLED* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlfMsZwr8rc _______________________________ My Veoh THE GREAT KING OF TERROR.... welcome to the REAL WORLD.... ______________________________________________________ funny how silent you dogs are now, eh Randi & Dawkins... and whatabout that monstrous looking freak called "PZ"...LOL. Atheists have never heard of something called "intellectual modesty &honesty." How about just keeping your IGNORANT TRAPS shut once in a while......?Thanks for your understanding..."
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Adminnemooseus Administrator Posts: 3976 Joined: |
We expect you to present your position via text messages posted here at the forum. With that text you can and should supply references (text preferred, but can include videos) to back up your position.
Your message presents you as some sort of crank. Members are not going to bother watching videos unless you give them much more substantial reasons to do such. If you really feel you need to link to videos, how about cutting the number down to a specific few most relevant to the point you're trying to make? The masses of videos in your message essentially amount to little more that some variety of spam. Forum administration doesn't like or much tolerate spam. NO REPLIES TO THIS MODERATION MESSAGE (STANDING FORUM POLICY). Just improve the content quality of your messages. Adminnemooseus Added by edit: A member has pointed out that you are very apparently the same person who started this topic. These two ID's will probably be merged into one. In all, you are very close to a suspension. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : See above. New Members should start HERE to get an understanding of what makes great posts. Report a problem etc. type topics:
Report Technical Problems Here: No. 1 Report Discussion Problems Here: No. 2 Thread Reopen Requests Considerations of topic promotions from the "Proposed New Topics" forum Other useful links:
Forum Guidelines, [thread=-19,-112], [thread=-17,-45], [thread=-19,-337], [thread=-14,-1073] Admin writes:
It really helps moderators figure out if a topic is disintegrating because of general misbehavior versus someone in particular if the originally non-misbehaving members kept it that way. When everyone is prickly and argumentative and off-topic and personal then it's just too difficult to tell. We have neither infinite time to untie the Gordian knot, nor the wisdom of Solomon. There used to be a comedian who presented his ideas for a better world, and one of them was to arm everyone on the highway with little rubber dart guns. Every time you see a driver doing something stupid, you fire a little dart at his car. When a state trooper sees someone driving down the highway with a bunch of darts all over his car he pulls him over for being an idiot. Please make it easy to tell you apart from the idiots. Source
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
felixmab Junior Member (Idle past 5577 days) Posts: 2 Joined: |
you need to watch all the videos and visit
http://nostradamus.0catch.com/
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024