Message from @Eoppa
Discord ID: 690022264397365264
Most people would just say "God is unconprehensible" and leave it at that
Old me didnt leave it at that, i dig further and further
I then found myself confident enough to answer questions like "how does God's Omniscient will allow my Free-Will to work" and such
Oh hey did you know there's a way of thought that makes free will and determinism non-contradictory?
Can you tell me then?
Because i have my own case here
Oh yeah it's actually a very interesting argument
On a practical level we could say that the universe is ultimately deterministic, because everything has to have a cause, and for every cause there is always another cause until the first cause
But, when making decisions as humans, we do not feel those constraints; we are unable to. Every decision we make is influenced by our environment, our genetics, etc. But we are not the subject upon which all those factors are acting, we are the sum total of those influences, and we are in turn taking our actions as free beings.
Therefore this argument states that a man is not independent of the factors that influence him, he is in fact the sum total of those factors, and that is why he is free.
But yeah, there are some arguements that claim refute it
But the reason why i said "claim" because the refute can be refuted if we were to take the Freedom Action upon Situations arguement
I do not understand what you said
I personally find that argument rather unconvincing and similar to the Lockean explanation. If the causal laws that determine the flow of water are determining your actions it isn't free will imo.
@Eoppa Do you reject determinism?
Cause and Effect
Not necessarily, I define my causal laws that everything that is in act receives its act from itself or from another.
I've taken a Thomistic approach that I sort of developed myself
In that there are plenty of things in the world that are more qualia than a physical relation. In the same way God can cause our free will by causing it's existence, yet we maintain our own causal power that isn't necessarily determined by that initial cause by God.
Comparing God, Time itself and all that we could and could never thought of will never be anything big if it were to be presenced
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@Eoppa There is something deeply unsettling about seeing a christian argue that God isn't the first cause of all things
You said that humans maintain causal power that is not determined by God
It's much more nuanced than I can fit into a paragraph
:/
It's what it reads like
I'm saying that free will is caused by God. From there the sort of 'qualia' if you could call it that of Free will is our choice. That's a horrible explanation, but it might convey the message a bit.
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But you maintain that God does not cause the things that humans cause by their free will?
Think of a red object for example. When you cause something to be red, all these wavelengths and cones are all caused by the formal and material causes. But the actual qualia of red is something confined to the intellect.
I maintain God does not directly determine our choices
Except in a more molinist way
But you also maintain that God is the cause of all things because God caused free will?
God can interfere in our affairs but He does not always
Its not God's plan that a baby is aborted after all
Yes, our choices and actions are simply the result of our free will.
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seems weak
I don't think so
Remember Adam and Eve?
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Also I hate when you mention the names of all those big shot philosophers because I have no idea what they said
Even if I've read some of them