rtris (04/22/83)
Tim, I would prefer that this discussion would be carried on in a civil
fashion. Don and I succeeded at this quite easily. Since he is now off to
Victoria, I would be quite happy to persue this topic with you. First though
let me say that it doesn't seem possible for a Christian to be in your good
books. You condemn both the (seemingly) blind faith supporters, and the
ones that are trying to understand their faith. If Christians just make you
barf, fine!, but don't imply it is some other attribute that causes it.
Preperatory remark: the only "incontrovertible" logic I can think of off
hand is propositional calculus and its ilk. And even if proofs appear
using these tools, there is endless room for wrangling about the assumptions
that were used.
Another one: the implicit aim of my discussion with Don was to fully come to
grips with each others (and our own!) position. I think this discussion is
still a long way from that, but already, I have gained insights which enable
me to express my position more clearly.
On to the topic: I have defined determinism to include rules that govern
state transitions, which take the state of the system as input. And that
God cannot be part of the input, since he is outside of the system.
You reply that if God intervenes in the system then he is in it.
I can't think of any reason why that necessarily follows. As an illustration,
suppose God is an eight dimensional being. He creates this 3 (maybe 4)
dimensional object we call the universe. Now being an eight dimensional being
it is simplicity itself for him to manipulate this object he has created.
Thusly he can intervene (which will change the state of the system). Yet
he is in no way confined to the universe.
He can "see" all states ("ask myself"), thusly he can predict (and
communicate those predictions to us if he wishes).
(I.e., he doesn't need to intervene in order to predict, only to "look").
Thus we could still have an omniscient God, and free will (in my opinion).
------
Trailing remark: Sorry, Christianity inherently holds to a number of answers.
I do my best to comprehend why it is that they are the answers. From your
remarks, I would assume that you are "open-minded" (i.e. do not presuppose
answers). If that is true, it would seem to me, that you should entertain the
possibility that omniscience and free will are compatible until proven other-
wise. I also think that requires persueing this discussion, if you're going
to be honest. Maybe I am a dummy. Maybe I got my degrees, and my programming
skills by pure fluke or something. But I contend that that is not true, that
my reasoning capacity is at least as good as yours, and that there is no
inherent contradiction between omniscience and free will.
Looking forward to your reply,
Ralph.tim (04/27/83)
I am about to bow out of this discussion, because I'm sick to death of having to repeat myself. I often get the feeling that the people who reply to my articles haven't read them. I state things in the plainest terms possible, and these statements, both my assertions and my demon- strations of their truth, are totally and entirely ignored. How can one carry on reasonable discussion with people who ignore one's statements? My final repetition follows. The physical world in the Christian cosmos is not a causally complete system. Events in the physical world can have their cause in some other domain, such as God, Hell, the soul, and angels. Thus, in any question of Christian cosmology such as the role of predestination, it is the entire System which must be considered, and God is a part of this System, since events in other domains have their causes in Him. Therefore, since there exists in the System The Rule by which future states of the System can be entirely, absolutely, and infallibly known, the entire System consisting of the physical world, Heaven, Hell, God, Satan, angels, souls, and whatever else your sect throws in, is deterministic. Christian doctrine strongly asserts that there are manifestations of The Rule in the physical world (or was Jesus lying when he said all those prophecies were really about him?) I am not prejudiced against Christians. What I loathe is half-baked sophistry, the justification of conclusions that have their true base in faith, when if the intellect were allowed to consider the issue freely and without preconception, the conclusions would be altogether different. In short, deciding the answers before considering the questions. Is there any person on the net who can honestly claim that he or she arrived by reason at the conclusion that predestination and free will are compatible without first belonging to a sect whose dogma demanded this conclusion? Opposition willing, I rest my case. Tim Maroney
dje (04/27/83)
I must reply to Tim's points. He opens with:
"Some of us claim that predestination and free will are mutually
exclusive... Others (all of whom, by some strange coincidence, are
Christians who are attempting to justify Christian doctrine --
obviously unbiased, right?) claim that since we don't know
our choices in advance, then we are still free, even though God knows
what we'll do."
and concludes with:
"You can't have both absolute foreknowledge and freedom of choice in a
system. That's all there is to it."
First, I am not attempting to justify Christian doctrine. I am Jewish, and
as can be seen from my other submissions to this newsgroup, I do not try
to promote Jewish doctrine, either.
I don't know whether Tim believes in free will. I do, and I maintain that
belief in free will is a tenable and consistent position WHETHER OR NOT one
believes in an omniscient God. Omniscience entails (fore-)knowledge and
NOT the deciding of future events. As long as God doesn't appear to me out
of the sky and tell me what I'm going to be doing in the future, my choices
are not affected by divine foreknowledge. Even in Jewish prophetic tradition,
whatever future knowledge that may have been revealed to the prophets did not
prejudice their choice of a course of action.
Where does predestination fit in? Predestination would seem to mean
that our choices are decided for us beforehand. As such, I don't believe in
it despite my belief in one omniscient, omnipotent God.
It's my opinion that a belief in free will is an essential ingredient in the
acceptance of full responsibility for one's actions. That's one of the reasons
I believe in free will. My belief in an omniscient God does not contradict my
belief in free will, and my belief in free will does not invalidate my personal
view of God. Nobody HAS to believe in God or free will; on the other hand,
there is no hypocrisy or inconsistency in believing in both.
Dave Ellis / Bell Labs, Piscataway NJ
...!harpo!npoiv!npois!houxm!5941ux!dje
...!{ariel,lime}!houti!hogpc!houxm!5941ux!dje