The Bible is literally true.

[Guest croweater]

We can however turn matter into energy, so why couldn't energy abundant in the universe condense into matter? Given thermodynamics, the universe has the same amount of energy as it always has.

 

"so where did the ENERGY come from?"

 

I don't know. That's a much more human answer than being positive it was god.

But the point is that it had to come from somewhere or someone that place or thing is what people call God.

 

God may be an omnipotent cherry flavoured lip balm for all we know, but generally, the name we give to the thing that started it all is God because we all agree we must come from something and something is likely to have pushed us into existence. From this rather logical conclusion other theories and imagries of God have come. Religion gives the cherry flavoured lip balm a motive, a purpose and even a character. They do this through the experience of past generations and past interactions with what they believe to be divine.

 

Ok, going back to the original topic again, for the 50 billionth time. Would God want the bible to be taken litterally. I mean, the gospels are his inspired word, but wouldn't God telling us how to live be in direct violation of our free will. So wouldn't God want the bible to be interprited so that we don't just become his robotic all following mind numbed slaves. To make the bible questionable and hence allow us to question it would be done most effectively by placing inconsistancies in there and slight hypocracies. Yes, it is written under God, but what if God wanted it to be written wrong?

 

It's late, and my point is getting muddled up in words, but the gist is that if God wanted the bible to be taken literally, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

[Guest croweater]

The flaw with your reasoning about the character of God, chaos, is that you're applying your somewhat sappy understanding of "love" to God.  It must be the other way around.  God defines love.  Love does not define God.  You're also failing to take into account an overall view with the sin issue, demonstrating a lack of understanding of what sin is and what it does.  But then that goes back to what I said above:  You apply a flawed, human definition to concepts that God laid out.

No, you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. If God existed, you're right, he would be love because that's who he is. What I am saying is he doesn't exist because what he does or what he allows isn't love. A good, loving god doesn't torture and kill his creations. A good, loving god doesn't allow his creations to torture and kill each other. If a god does this, he isn't a good loving God, so the fact that the universe has things like an eternal torture chamber, earthquakes, and murderers means the christian God can't exist.

 

If you call God love, you either A) call him that because you read it in the bible and you think the bible has to be true. In which case, you're using the same logic that people who fly planes into buildings use. "God is love, whatever he says to do must be right no matter what. After all, the book even said he was." So if you think he says to kill random people, you don't have to question it or bother thinking for yourself, just have faith and be convinced that it's love and has some greater good behind it.

 

OR B) you have arrived at this decision based on some understanding of the word. If you call a being who tortures people love, you must think torture is a good and loving act. It either is, or it isn't. If it's love for God, it has to be love for us to do it too. Especially if God defines what love is.

 

So which is it? A or B?

You must also remember Christians believe in heaven and free will. Death to a Christian isn't a punishment, it's a freedom. So yes, in an earthquake you may have 100 people dead, but that's 100 people living for all of eternity in heaven on the other side of the coin.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

People come up with the goofiest shit when they want to ascribe an absurd object/animal to being the almighty.

 

Personally, I'd go with Justin Wilson. That's the kind of guy I want waiting to pass judgment on me. Really, how could the creole cook send someone to hell? He'd just let everyone come on in, and have lots of spicy food and wine.

[chaosrage 0]

It is, but free will is true at the same time, which is the part you don't understand. God gave us free will, but because he is God, he is somewhat outside the concept of it. It's not the easiest thing to understand.

How can we do anything other than what god knows we will do? If he knows, free will doesn't exist because there's no way you can change what God already knows will happen. It's set in stone whether or not you would believe in him before you were ever born. And there's nothing you can do about it.

 

It's pretty easy to understand. Here's a scenerio for you.

 

You wake up in the morning. You yawn and stumble down the stairs. You make your way to the kitchen, grab a bowl and spoon for your morning cereal.

 

You open the cupboard and see Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes, your 2 favorite cereals in the world. You love them both so much and can't decide which you want today.

 

God is sitting in the clouds, doing whatever god does in the morning. He looks down from his cloud and before you even wake up, knows with 100% certainty that you will choose Frosted Flakes this morning.

 

You reach up to the cupboard and grab your Frosted Flakes.

 

Here is the question:

Could you have chosen Fruit Loops? Yes or No.

 

He's God, not Santa Claus. Actually, God can't do anything, now that you mention it. He's bound by his own nature. He can't sin, for example. There's also stupid Zen riddles like creating a rock so big he can't lift it, but that's sunday school nonsense. But I digress... in a long handed way, I think you've asked God to make 2 plus 2 5, another thing he can't do.

 

Well, so much for omnipotence, eh?

 

Looks like we found another part of the bible that you don't think is literally true.

Luke 1:37, "For with God, nothing shall be impossible."

 

Ok, yeah. I'm presupposing the existance of Hell as we know it to say that by God's nature he must send someone there.

 

Why is that? And if he didn't make up the rule that if we don't believe a man 2000 years ago was the son of God, died, and turned into a zombie, we get sent to hell, then who did make up that silly rule, and why is God bound to it?

 

Ok, avoiding the Hell issue again, God wants something else. He wants you to love him, but not just cause he's God..

 

So if God really was all-powerful like the bible says and DID have a control over hell, he would still be ultimately more concerned with what we think of him than with human suffering.

"You don't love me? BURN IN HELL FOREVER!!!"

 

Yeah, what a nice guy.

 

Has anyone here not heard this before? No? Let's move on.

 

Was that a concession?

 

Oh and you missed the one about the universe not being made in 6 days.

 

If you've ever used the word sunrise, you've violated your own logic.

 

From the perspective of Earth, the sun rises every day. Right, just like at night we get light from the moon. But the sun does in fact rise over the horizon in our field of vision and we do have light from the moon. So it makes perfect sense to have words like sunrise and moonlight. What would be incorrect and fucking stupid would be to say that the moon IS a light. It isn't. It might appear to be but that doesn't change the fact that it's just a big rock. From no perspective does the moon make light.

 

There are two answers to this. One, the sunrise thing again. Two, study some Hebrew. Both will work.

 

Sunrise example doesn't work. And are you trying to say the Hebrew word for firmament meant something other than a solid platform? If so, you're wrong.

 

We talked about that already.

 

Um, I don't think anyone mentioned the flora that wouldn't be able to survive in water, the diseases, the fish, the size of the arc, some species not being able to survive outside their natural habitats, etc.. If you can't answer it, just be a man and admit it.

 

I never said it was 6000 years old, and the Bible doesn't either.

 

Actually, it does. The timeline of the bible starting with Adam and Eve covers a 6000 year period of time. That's why we have young Earth creationists trying to prove that Earth is only about that old. They are of course insane, but well... that's what it takes to believe in a literally true bible.

 

Here's a timeline btw. http://agards-bible-timeline.com/timeline_online.html

 

Everything that you been saying is all bad.

 

no u

 

The Bible's not allowed to use poetic language? It assumes you're smart enough to tell the difference. The Bible doesn't say the sun travels around the earth, it says the sun makes a circuit across the sky, which it does, from the perspective of the earth. The demons thing, you'd have to be more specific.

 

It says God made the sun stand still. One time he even moved the sun backwards. But no mention was made of the Earth rotating or going around the sun. Wonder why that is. And the roman catholic church saw Galileo’s theory of the solar system so much of a threat to the faith that they forced him to recant it. I wonder why that is. They must all have been too stupid to tell the difference. As for poetic language, do you even know what the word literal means? There's plenty of christians that think the entire book of Genesis is poetic language. And you don't have any more evidence to say it's poetic language than they do. Maybe God also assumes that you'd be smart enough to not believe in a global flood and to think that Noah gathered two velicoraptors and put them on a boat.

 

Start naming them. But please check to see if someone has already tried.

 

There was a link to hundreds of them that no one responded to yet. But alright, here's one for now. "Thou shall not kill" and "Eye for an eye, life for a life".

 

I read that already. I'll note that I never denied evolution as a concept, I deny it as a theory of the origin of life and species. The theory is just that obviously wrong. Anyone who espouses it is ignorant (most people fall here, so that's not so bad), deluded or stupid.

 

That's nice. If you HAD read it, you would know that evolution says nothing about the origins of life. It only deals with the diversification of species after the first life appeared. The word you're looking for is 'abiogenesis'. Maybe you should try reading it again.

 

Easy. Those are proved false by Genesis.

 

But Genesis is proved false by Lord of the Rings. Uh-oh.

 

You've forgotten that I'm smarter than you. I addressed this in my response to Jingus.

 

Jingus didn't ask you how they would be robots if they didn't get sent to hell and you didn't address robots in your repsonse. So what's the answer? Please explain to me how if he didn't send us to hell, we would be robots. I'm dying to hear this.

 

Or he could torture everyone for fun. Yeah, what I said to Jingus again.

 

Or you could just give a straight response. You said there were no other way he could do it, but I showed you that there are some other ways. This isn't even a logical contradiction, like the rock paradox. It's just simply not sending people to hell. Instead of sending them there, he could send them to a world made out of ice cream. No contradiction here.

 

I'm a sick bastard, that's for sure.

 

Yeah, apparently.

 

This is what I meant by both sides of the argument being circular. You can't understand it, and since your understanding is the ultimate authority, it didn't happen. If God is the ultimate authority, you don't have to understand it, but that doesn't mean you can't. Again, God is omnipotent only to the point he isn't bound by his nature.

 

What does this have to do with god sacrificing himself to save humanity from himself?

 

Why do you think God gave us free will?

 

This implies that he actually gave us free will. He didn't.

 

Even if you ignore predestination for some strange reason, God is essentially saying "I will allow you to do whatever you want. But if you don't do what I WANT you to do, I will take away your freedom and RESTRAIN you in hell!" Is this supposed to make any kind of sense?

 

You're right, God didn't have to sacrifice himself, so why did he?

 

He is very stupid and likes pain?

 

What would God gain by creating man in the first place? The answer's there, find it.

 

To boost his ego. That's pretty obvious. A deity that requires worship and praise has a HUGE ego problem.

 

Untrue. The standard of salvation is proportionate to your capability. This is also what applies to the people who have never heard of Christ.

 

Site verse, please.

 

David had a baby die (God killed it to punish him, so sit on that). He knew the baby went to heaven and said as much.

 

Again, verse.

 

Despite the popular image, God is not some oagrish taskmaster meting out judgement and holding man up to some impossible standard. It's easy to be saved. It's just that some people look it in the eye and say no.

 

This is your sense. A man walks up to you and puts a gun to your head and says if you don't him your wallet he will shoot you. You refuse, he shoots. By your logic getting shot is your own fault for making the wrong choice, not the guy with the gun.

 

Ya'll are missing the point. Do you worship Zues? Then who gives a shit. I'm not saying I want to sit here and play darts with a panteon of gods. I've chosen the Christian God, and several of you have attempted to discredit this viewpoint, and I have countered. If you follow some other god, I don't mind picking it apart as you have tried to do, and I'm confident you wouldn't be able to defend it as well as I have.

 

What happened to "Give me a god and I will."? I happen to follow the invisible Magic Goat God. Start picking it apart.

[chaosrage 0]

Secondly, I find the whole "if there is a God thenwhy am I here?/ Why is there suffering in the world?" thing to be quite pointless.

Pointless if you don't care about what kind of a being you're worshipping, I suppose. If you DO care, actions must be evaluated. Conclusions must be reached.

 

Well, if you consider the garden of Eden true then God gave us this existence and we chose to not have it. Everything you described there sounds like heaven anyway, which of course, God did create.

 

Two things.

 

1. We didn't choose to not have it. Our ancestors 6000 years ago did. Do you believe in punishing someone for something their grandparents or great greatparents did? If not, how can you stand behind something like this? (if you consider the story to be true)

 

2. To have a real free will choice, Adam and Eve had to be able to tell the difference between the choices. God not only neglected to tell them, but he forbade them from knowing the difference. They were set up. Again even with ignoring the issue of predestination.

[chaosrage 0]

And where did the matter for the black hole come from?

 

The same place God came from. It was always there.

 

We don't fully understand how either of those things could have happened, so to say "this one is true because it sounds more scientific" seems kind of silly to me.

 

There's a lot of evidence for the Big Bang and no evidence for any gods .

[Guest croweater]

Is the big bang not evidence for god?

 

How can we do anything other than what god knows we will do? If he knows, free will doesn't exist because there's no way you can change what God already knows will happen. It's set in stone whether or not you would believe in him before you were ever born. And there's nothing you can do about it.

 

It's pretty easy to understand. Here's a scenerio for you.

 

You wake up in the morning. You yawn and stumble down the stairs. You make your way to the kitchen, grab a bowl and spoon for your morning cereal.

 

You open the cupboard and see Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes, your 2 favorite cereals in the world. You love them both so much and can't decide which you want today.

 

God is sitting in the clouds, doing whatever god does in the morning. He looks down from his cloud and before you even wake up, knows with 100% certainty that you will choose Frosted Flakes this morning.

 

You reach up to the cupboard and grab your Frosted Flakes.

 

Here is the question:

Could you have chosen Fruit Loops? Yes or No.

 

Yes, but god would have known that you would have chosen the fruit loops. It's like I know my brother so well that when given an option between two things he equally likes, he will always chose the thing closest to his right hand side. So If I set up a block of chocolate and a bowl of icecream side by side, both of which he likes equally I know he will choose the icecream because it's on the right. Does that make it any less his choice? No. It's just I know what he's going to choose, I didn't make him choose it.

 

Secondly, I find the whole "if there is a God thenwhy am I here?/ Why is there suffering in the world?" thing to be quite pointless.

Pointless if you don't care about what kind of a being you're worshipping, I suppose. If you DO care, actions must be evaluated. Conclusions must be reached.

You seem to be staring at the point of your nose. Do our actions affect who we are, or does who we are affect our actions? Why we are here should be obvious from what we do.

 

So if God really was all-powerful like the bible says and DID have a control over hell, he would still be ultimately more concerned with what we think of him than with human suffering.

"You don't love me? BURN IN HELL FOREVER!!!"

God created and controls hell because he created us and chose to give us free will. Ultimately it is our actions and mindsets which determine if we go to hell. God is the judge and jury. If we go to hell it is because we plead guilty and shame sends us there. The bible teaches that if we are sorry for any wrongs we have commited and we are truely sorry and repentive we will be saved from hell.

 

 

Why is that? And if he didn't make up the rule that if we don't believe a man 2000 years ago was the son of God, died, and turned into a zombie, we get sent to hell, then who did make up that silly rule, and why is God bound to it?

I don't believe it is said and taught anywhere in christianity that if you don't follow Jesus you will go to hell.

 

Actually, it does. The timeline of the bible starting with Adam and Eve covers a 6000 year period of time. That's why we have young Earth creationists trying to prove that Earth is only about that old. They are of course insane, but well... that's what it takes to believe in a literally true bible.

I'm pretty sure I've never read anywhere in the bible that the world come into existance 6000 years ago, a timeline is little proof of that aswell.

 

It says God made the sun stand still. One time he even moved the sun backwards. But no mention was made of the Earth rotating or going around the sun. Wonder why that is. And the roman catholic church saw Galileo’s theory of the solar system so much of a threat to the faith that they forced him to recant it. I wonder why that is. They must all have been too stupid to tell the difference. As for poetic language, do you even know what the word literal means? There's plenty of christians that think the entire book of Genesis is poetic language. And you don't have any more evidence to say it's poetic language than they do. Maybe God also assumes that you'd be smart enough to not believe in a global flood and to think that Noah gathered two velicoraptors and put them on a boat.

 

Are you saying God couldn't make the sun stand still or move backwards if he wanted too?

 

 

I won't bother to reply to the end bit of your post because things just became obviously silly.

[Guest Brian]

If all your actions are already written out, you have no free will. Come on Crow, you know the Jasmine storyline. If God is an omniscient being, he's also prescient, as far as knowing all things. There's is nothing you can do that God doesn't already know you're going to do. It's the nature of being God. Not everything you choose to do is about patterns. Once in a while, I'm going to choose to sleep in, and workout later in the day after school rather than going before. There's no pattern to it; some days I'll want eight instead of ten hours of sleep, some six instead of four. I feel like it's on a whim, but if there's a God, that sumbitch knows what I'm going to do three days before I've done it. In fact, he knows the whole outcome of his seemingly failed humanity experiment.

[Guest SP-1]

Knowledge isn't dictation. Simply because God knows and participates and has a blanket, ultimate destiny for the people that HE created doesn't make you a robot. Free Will is factored in because He made it a factor and since he's God he's perfectly capable of making it all work together.

 

Also, chaos, your perspective on the Fall and sin is wrong. He's not punishing us for what Adam and Eve did. What they did changed what they were. Imperfect people physically (and with a fallen spiritual state) cannot reproduce perfect offspring. That rebellion caused seperation, and it became a part of who we are. Your understanding of how serious sin is in comparison with perfection and what was thrown away in the Garden leads to your approach and I understand that. It is so serious and our seperation so great that justice demands death. You also don't take into account Christ in that equation, which further exposes your bias and narrowminded approach to this. From Genesis 3, God was already putting a plan into motion to REDEEM us. But we were created with the ability to choose, and He hasn't stripped that away. Just like in the Garden, we'll always have the choice to choose His way or not. And just like before, so many act just like their first parents and choose to ignore what He's given.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

The world is indeed vast.

[Guest Brian]

So how does he know everything and yet not know everything? Is he not omniscient? If he knows everything, he knows what we're going to choose, so we have no real choice in the matter because before we've even pondered the choice, God already knows the answer.

[Guest SP-1]

So how does he know everything and yet not know everything? Is he not omniscient? If he knows everything, he knows what we're going to choose, so we have no real choice in the matter because before we've even pondered the choice, God already knows the answer.

And how does that negate the ability to choose?

[Guest Brian]

We can't choose if our fate has already been chosen. That doesn't make it ours.

[Guest SP-1]

Look at the language you're using, Brian.

 

So how does he know everything and yet not know everything? Is he not omniscient? If he knows everything, he knows what we're going to choose, so we have no real choice in the matter because before we've even pondered the choice, God already knows the answer.

 

God knowing and being a participant does not remove our ability to choose. Knowing and puppeteering are not the same thing.

[Guest croweater]

If there was no God and so no one knew what we were going to choose we would still make exactly the same choice than if someone knew what we were going to choose before hand.

 

It's like watching a movie for a second time. Just because we know exactly what's going to happen doesn't make what the character does any less their choice. Just because I've watched "The Becoming Pt2" multiple times and know the story well doesn't make it any less of Buffy's choice to kill Angel.

[Nighthawk 0]

*cereal thing*

 

It's funny, because cereal is my favorite food in the world and I love all kinds... except Froot Loops. I hate them.

 

I explained this and all you did was ask the question again. Knowledge is not the same as dictation. Let me squeeze this one in there:

 

We can't choose if our fate has already been chosen. That doesn't make it ours.

 

It was chosen by us. God is outside of time.

 

Well, so much for omnipotence, eh?

 

Looks like we found another part of the bible that you don't think is literally true.

Luke 1:37,  "For with God, nothing shall be impossible."

 

Yeah, show me the word omnipotence in the Bible.

 

The Greek word translated impossible could be rendered "too difficult", the implication being that there is nothing God tries to do and can't.

 

Ok, yeah. I'm presupposing the existance of Hell as we know it to say that by God's nature he must send someone there.

 

Why is that?

 

For the sake of argument. I don't really believe in that interpretation of Hell, and if you'd like to challenge my literal interpretation based on that, we can flip the script and you quote the verses while I counter.

 

Ok, avoiding the Hell issue again, God wants something else. He wants you to love him, but not just cause he's God..

 

So if God really was all-powerful like the bible says and DID have a control over hell, he would still be ultimately more concerned with what we think of him than with human suffering.

"You don't love me? BURN IN HELL FOREVER!!!"

 

Yeah, what a nice guy.

 

We have to get around to this Hell thing.

 

Has anyone here not heard this before? No? Let's move on.

 

Was that a concession?

 

Oh and you missed the one about the universe not being made in 6 days.

 

No, it's just been done to death.

 

Me: "God said let there be light first thing, the light existed of it's own accord."

 

You: "Duuhr, light without sun? That's unpossible!"

 

Me: "Luke 1:37."

 

You: "No true."

 

Me: "He did it that way on purpose to make you look dumb."

 

I didn't miss it, I skipped it because it wasn't an argument.

 

You: It took 50 zillion years.

 

Me: No it didn't.

 

And?

 

From the perspective of Earth, the sun rises every day.  Right, just like at night we get light from the moon.  But the sun does in fact rise over the horizon in our field of vision and we do have light from the moon.  So it makes perfect sense to have words like sunrise and moonlight.  What would be incorrect and fucking stupid would be to say that the moon IS a light.  It isn't.  It might appear to be but that doesn't change the fact that it's just a big rock. From no perspective does the moon make light.   

 

I'm sorry, but this is just straight up stupid. Look up light in the dictionary.

 

Sunrise example doesn't work.  And are you trying to say the Hebrew word for firmament meant something other than a solid platform?  If so, you're wrong. 

 

So ø÷éò (raqiya) doesn't mean expanse, sky or heaven? You've cracked the Genesis code! I'd better alert The Jews.

 

Um, I don't think anyone mentioned the flora that wouldn't be able to survive in water, the diseases, the fish, the size of the arc, some species not being able to survive outside their natural habitats, etc.. If you can't answer it, just be a man and admit it.

 

I'm just honestly bored talking about it. Ok, so those species didn't exist before, and are the result of a rapid evolution immediately following. And God protected at least two of every kind of fish miraculously. There were miracles involved, God's been known to do that, you know. God sent all the animals, they weren't gathered. Note that because you've implied twice that Noah would have had to go and trap two velociraptors, which by the way were only about the size of dogs when full grown. Is the idea of a flood covering the entire earth not miraculous enough that it becomes implausible based on this?

 

I never said it was 6000 years old, and the Bible doesn't either.

 

Actually, it does. The timeline of the bible starting with Adam and Eve covers a 6000 year period of time. That's why we have young Earth creationists trying to prove that Earth is only about that old. They are of course insane, but well... that's what it takes to believe in a literally true bible.

 

Actually, it doesn't. For one, there are gaps in the genaeologies which that number is based on. Before you whine, quote me a verse which says "These familial records are complete and unabridged." Skipping to the important people was common at the time and much later as well. For another, the 6000 years was not even supposed to be the date of creation. It was determined by Archbishop Ussher by tracing recorded history, the very thing you attempt to discredit it with. Surprising as it may be, there are young Earth creationists just as ignorant as you.

 

It says God made the sun stand still.  One time he even moved the sun backwards.  But no mention was made of the Earth rotating or going around the sun.  Wonder why that is.  And the roman catholic church saw Galileo’s theory of the solar system so much of a threat to the faith that they forced him to recant it.  I wonder why that is. They must all have been too stupid to tell the difference.  As for poetic language, do you even know what the word literal means?  There's plenty of christians that think the entire book of Genesis is poetic language.  And you don't have any more evidence to say it's poetic language than they do.  Maybe God also assumes that you'd be smart enough to not believe in a global flood and to think that Noah gathered two velicoraptors and put them on a boat.

 

Perhps no mention of the Earth rotating or going around sun is made because they didn't know. No mention is made of the sun rotating around the Earth either. Wonder why that is. Yes, the roman catholic chruch was very much too stupid to tell the difference. Thought you knew.

I've already explained that I use the word literal because it quickly familiarizes people with the predominant slant of the viewpoint. If I say "I interpret the Bible correctly." what reaction will I get? Interpret the Bible literally when it speaks literally. Do not even attempt to broach the subject of Genesis not being intended as literal, it's cross referenced so many times it's literal intention is one of the most verifiable things in the Bible.

Yes, I do have more evidence because they're stupid and I'm not. The Bible also says that sin is crouching at your door. "That means sin is a person with a body! How else could it crouch?!" That's not what literal is.

 

There was a link to hundreds of them that no one responded to yet.  But alright, here's one for now.  "Thou shall not kill" and "Eye for an eye, life for a life".

 

I responded to them. Not all of them, because I don't want to sit here all day. There are none I can't respond to. Pick some that are important to you. One is for personal conduct, one is directed at a government. You're making this easy.

 

That's nice.  If you HAD read it, you would know that evolution says nothing about the origins of life.  It only deals with the diversification of species after the first life appeared. The word you're looking for is 'abiogenesis'.  Maybe you should try reading it again.

 

Remember what I said about literal? If I come on here and say "I reject a humanistic view of abiogenesis.", the response will be "Prince used a school word!" You know very well that I'm familiar with the word because I referenced it in the last post directed at you.

 

Easy. Those are proved false by Genesis.

 

But Genesis is proved false by Lord of the Rings. Uh-oh.

 

Ask a stupid question...

 

Jingus didn't ask you how they would be robots if they didn't get sent to hell and you didn't address robots in your repsonse.  So what's the answer?  Please explain to me how if he didn't send us to hell, we would be robots.    I'm dying to hear this.

 

I said if I presuppose the existance of Hell as we know it, we would be robots if God didn't send anybody there.

 

Or you could just give a straight response.  You said there were no other way he could do it, but I showed you that there are some other ways. This isn't even a logical contradiction, like the rock paradox.  It's just simply not sending people to hell.  Instead of sending them there, he could send them to a world made out of ice cream.  No contradiction here.

 

You've completely missed the point. Three times now I've said that I was working within the framework of Heaven and Hell already existing as we know them.

 

What does this have to do with god sacrificing himself to save humanity from himself? 

 

Because you don't understand why it makes sense, therefore you conclude it didn't happen.

 

Why do you think God gave us free will?

 

This implies that he actually gave us free will. He didn't.

 

He did.

 

Even if you ignore predestination for some strange reason, God is essentially saying "I will allow you to do whatever you want.  But if you don't do what I WANT you to do, I will take away your freedom and RESTRAIN you in hell!"  Is this supposed to make any kind of sense?

 

Yeah, unless you're stupid. If there's no God, do you have free will? Think carefully before answering.

 

You're right, God didn't have to sacrifice himself, so why did he?

 

He is very stupid and likes pain?

 

No.

 

What would God gain by creating man in the first place? The answer's there, find it.

 

To boost his ego. That's pretty obvious. A deity that requires worship and praise has a HUGE ego problem.

 

No. For another thing, a deity who is worthy of worship and praise has no ego problem for requiring it. That's like saying that you're selfish and greedy for expecting to get paid when you go to work.

 

Untrue. The standard of salvation is proportionate to your capability. This is also what applies to the people who have never heard of Christ.

 

Site verse, please.

 

Romans 1:18 through 2:16.

 

David had a baby die (God killed it to punish him, so sit on that). He knew the baby went to heaven and said as much.

 

Again, verse.

 

2 Samuel 12:23. See also 2 Samuel 13:14, Hebrews 11:32.

 

This is your sense.  A man walks up to you and puts a gun to your head and says if you don't him your wallet he will shoot you. You refuse, he shoots. By your logic getting shot is your own fault for making the wrong choice, not the guy with the gun.

 

No. It's more like your mother telling you to hold her hand while you cross the street, you refusing, and getting run down.

 

What happened to "Give me a god and I will."?  I happen to follow the invisible Magic Goat God.  Start picking it apart.

 

I changed my mind. I'll only do it if it matters, and then only if I feel like it. Please don't play dumb.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Spidey:

Because you have four documents written or dictated not only within an eyewitness generation of the events depicted (rare), but also written or dictated by participants of the events themselves.  When you factor in that the documents were not written at the same time, under the same circumstances, or in the same location, it begins to look all the more interesting when you then factor in that they tend to line up their claims rather well.

 

Could you explain to me then why Paul and other early writers speak of the divine Son of their faith entirely in a spiritual sense, without referring to him as 'Jesus Christ' (or 'Annointed Saviour'), a man who historically lived and rose from the dead? Paul himself makes it quite clear that his own knowledge of 'Christ' is derived entirely from scripture under 'God's inspiration', not from any eyewitness or other individual who knew a man, named Jesus Christ, that was the Son of God.

 

Paul also refers to the 'resurrection' as taking place somewhere other than Earth or history. If I recall correctly, Paul indicates that the resurrection took place in a spiritual realm above the Earth at the hands of 'evil spirits', which is open to interpretation.

 

UYI

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Something else I'd like to point out:

 

*All* Gospels derive their story of this character known as Jesus of Nazareth from one, single source - what ever group of individuals wrote the Gospel According To Mark. Matthew and Luke are but reworkings of Mark's Gospel, with additional material added. The only other source I can think of is Acts of the Apostles. However, that was created around the second century, thus having no historical credibility as it would of had to base everything directly from the already written Gospels.

[Guest SP-1]

Could you explain to me then why Paul and other early writers speak of the divine Son of their faith entirely in a spiritual sense, without referring to him as 'Jesus Christ' (or 'Annointed Saviour'), a man who historically lived and rose from the dead? Paul himself makes it quite clear that his own knowledge of 'Christ' is derived entirely from scripture under 'God's inspiration', not from any eyewitness or other individual who knew a man, named Jesus Christ, that was the Son of God.

 

Paul also refers to the 'resurrection' as taking place somewhere other than Earth or history. If I recall correctly, Paul indicates that the resurrection took place in a spiritual realm above the Earth at the hands of 'evil spirits', which is open to interpretation.

 

Scripture to support this? Reason for this interpretation? Tell me where you're getting it from and I can probably tell you why Paul was using that language. Paul tended to be showy in his dictation and in his writing. His head tended to move faster than his mouth, giving alot of grandiose terminology to marry spiritual concepts to practical application and example. You've got to take into account his writing style, apparent thought process, the audience he was writing to, and the matter at hand. Give me some examples and we can unpack it.

 

*All* Gospels derive their story of this character known as Jesus of Nazareth from one, single source - what ever group of individuals wrote the Gospel According To Mark. Matthew and Luke are but reworkings of Mark's Gospel, with additional material added. The only other source I can think of is Acts of the Apostles. However, that was created around the second century, thus having no historical credibility as it would of had to base everything directly from the already written Gospels.

 

1. Evidence? This is theory. And a shady one derived from bias (not by you, but its obviously an attempt to discredit all the gospels).

 

2. Acts was written by Luke and was the second part of a larger historical narrative. One that was evidently researched by Luke himself, a physician. They were written close together to the same man (Theophilus). The text itself makes this clear.

Edited September 26, 2004 by SP-1

[Guest Brian]

Once you know the outcome, the "choice" is already determined. "Choice" implies that there could be an alternative, but there never can be. It's not God actively dictating your life, it's him knowing the exact direction of your life, and every single event that has led up to your life.

 

Take the Garden of Eden, for instance. Before he even created man, he must have known, in all his infinite knowledge, the exact way it would play out, and every event thereafter. There are no alternates.

[Guest SP-1]

Once you know the outcome, the "choice" is already determined. "Choice" implies that there could be an alternative, but there never can be. It's not God actively dictating your life, it's him knowing the exact direction of your life, and every single event that has led up to your life.

 

Take the Garden of Eden, for instance. Before he even created man, he must have known, in all his infinite knowledge, the exact way it would play out, and every event thereafter. There are no alternates.

And your point is? You just negated your earlier claims.

[Guest Brian]

How so? Our fate has already been chosen, we just don't know it. There's no alternative, there's no choice.

[Nighthawk 0]

Our fate has already been chosen ... there's no choice.

[Guest Brian]

Semantics. I should have said determined.

[TheBigSwigg 0]

Did you ever see the old X-Men cartoon where Apocalypse found the center of time and rounded up all the psychic mutants to rewrite history? (okay, that's just how I remember it. It may have been a bit different.) Time was laid out like a outer space microfilm machine. That's similar to how God sees time. God isn't watching what we're doing right now, necessarily. He's not moving through time as we are, he's outside of it. That's how he knows, in my opinion.

 

To be honest, comics and comic characters have done an amazing God helping me understand my faith. Read the Sandman and you'll get the idea of how God cannot break his rules even though He's the one that made them. Breaking those rules would, in effect, negate everything God is. God made it so that those who don't accept Christ and live sinful lives will spend eternity away from Him. If He changed that, it's likely the universe would fall apart as God cannot lie or break His own rules.

 

I hope that made sense

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Could you explain to me then why Paul and other early writers speak of the divine Son of their faith entirely in a spiritual sense, without referring to him as 'Jesus Christ' (or 'Annointed Saviour'), a man who historically lived and rose from the dead? Paul himself makes it quite clear that his own knowledge of 'Christ' is derived entirely from scripture under 'God's inspiration', not from any eyewitness or other individual who knew a man, named Jesus Christ, that was the Son of God.

 

Paul also refers to the 'resurrection' as taking place somewhere other than Earth or history. If I recall correctly, Paul indicates that the resurrection took place in a spiritual realm above the Earth at the hands of 'evil spirits', which is open to interpretation.

 

Scripture to support this? Reason for this interpretation? Tell me where you're getting it from and I can probably tell you why Paul was using that language. Paul tended to be showy in his dictation and in his writing. His head tended to move faster than his mouth, giving alot of grandiose terminology to marry spiritual concepts to practical application and example. You've got to take into account his writing style, apparent thought process, the audience he was writing to, and the matter at hand. Give me some examples and we can unpack it.

 

*All* Gospels derive their story of this character known as Jesus of Nazareth from one, single source - what ever group of individuals wrote the Gospel According To Mark. Matthew and Luke are but reworkings of Mark's Gospel, with additional material added. The only other source I can think of is Acts of the Apostles. However, that was created around the second century, thus having no historical credibility as it would of had to base everything directly from the already written Gospels.

 

1. Evidence? This is theory. And a shady one derived from bias (not by you, but its obviously an attempt to discredit all the gospels).

 

2. Acts was written by Luke and was the second part of a larger historical narrative. One that was evidently researched by Luke himself, a physician. They were written close together to the same man (Theophilus). The text itself makes this clear.

Sorry, I meant to include the source.

 

I've been studying alternate perceptions of Christianity as part of my religious course and came across this site. Cycle through all the 'pieces to the puzzle' and you will see exactly where I found all of my information. However, some of it came straight from the mouth of my own tutor, I've yet to really look heavily into it and was looking to see if you could offer a rebuttal.

 

Going from what I looked at this week though, 1 Cor: 3-4 seems to outline Paul's main source of information as the Scriptures.

[Nighthawk 0]

Semantics. I should have said determined.

Yes, it is semantics. This has been explained more than once, yet you still fail to grasp it.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

No, he's got a point..I'm going to write it out like a quiz or something so we can quit arguing semantics:

 

1. God has already determined our fate. (T/F) T

 

2. Given this, there is only one outcome to any decision we have to make.

 

3. If this outcome is already pre-determined, how did we "choose" it? That's the illusion of choice. God is the one who really has free will. He's not bound by perfection, either. Look at all the imperfect things he's created.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

This, is fairly long. Credit goes to Bryan Caplan, a professor of mine. This essay attempts to argue that free will exists without tackling the arguments on the existence of God. By what's below, free will exists, period, and adding "God" into the mix will not change the outcome of the argument.

 

I would contend free will and God then to be mutually inclusive. I've got one other article coming.

 

 

_A Short Essay on the Freedom of the Will_

 

by Bryan Caplan

 

1. Free will, what

 

At the outset, it is necessary to gt a clear understanding of what

exactly "free will" is. A being has free will if given all other

causal factors in the universe (genetic and environmental, physical and

chemical are two popular current pairings) it nevertheless possesses the

ability to choose more than one thing. The word "freedom" has many

other uses -- political freedom being the foremost among these -- but

the kind of freedom that I am talking about could be exercised even if a

person lay encased in chains, or had a gun aimed at his head. It is

the freedom of the mind from causal determination, not the freedom from

physical constraints or threats of violence.

 

2. The Objection from the Law of Causality

 

Now there are some immediate objections to the idea of free will. To

begin with, it seems to violate the law of causality: "Every effect must

have a cause; the same cause always produces the same effects." The

reply here is fairly simple: it simply denies that a free choice is an

_effect_ of anything else. Since a choice is not an effect, the law of

causality is simply irrelevant here.

 

Another formulation of the law of causality says that "Every _change_

must have a cause." Now this does indeed conflict with my notion of

free will. And hence I ask: why should we believe that every change has

a cause? I simply deny that this is so. I observe uncaused changes

during my every waking moment, whenever I contemplate my own choices.

Why should I discard this observation in favor of one formulation of the

law of causality, however plausible?

 

3. The Quantum Confusion

 

A further confusion identitifies free will with randomness, probabilism,

and (of course) quantum mechanics. But I say that free will and

randomness have nothing whatever to do with each other; indeed, a

probabilistic theory of choice is just as contrary to the freedom of the

will as a fully deterministic one. The argument here is extremely

simple. Imagine that my action is determined by the roll of a six-sided

die; if it comes up six, I raise my arm. Now suppose that _all six_

faces have a six on them. Now it is clear that in this case I have no

free will. But suppose we put six different faces on the die, each

one determining a different action. Am I any freer than before? On te

contrary, I am fully a puppet dangling from the proverbial strings. The

point is simply that if my actions are determined by any outside

process, then I am as fully unfree whether those processes are

deterministic or have a random element in them. To uphold free will

then, we must deny than either of these theories describes the etiology

of the mind.

 

4. Choices, Actions, Causality

 

To face a final preliminary issue -- what is the relationship between

causality and free will? To put the question more clearly: in some

sense, causality is necessary for free will, because an essential part

of free will is the idea that I _cause_ my actions. The answer is that

we must distinguish actions and choices. Actions are effects of a cause

known as the free will. Free will causes actions by making choices.

But choices are not effects.

 

 

5. What We Choose

 

I move now to my substantive notion of free will. I claim that we

choose a large number of things. To begin with, we choose our beliefs.

Secondly, we choose many of our bodily movements. Thirdly, we choose

many of our mental processes (by analogy, mental movements) such as

whether we will think and what we will think about. A more precise

breakdown would be difficult, but fortunately everyone already has a

pretty clear idea of the boundaries: the pumping of the heart is

involuntary, whereas speaking is; accepting a belief is voluntary, but

having an emotion is not; thinking about free will is voluntary, but

seeing what is in front of my face when my eyes are open is not. The

thoughtful reader will surely see that even these boundaries have

exceptions and irregularities: supposedly some people can control their

heart beat with training, and sometimes thoughts spring into our minds

involuntarily. Philosopher Mike Huemer hinted as a provactive

distinction: "A choice is something one _does_, whereas the involuntary

is something that _happens_ to one."

 

6. Four Arguments for the Existence of Free Will

 

I believe that the main objection most people have to free will is just

that it conflicts with the law of causality. I have addressed this

problem above: on one interpretation, there is no conflict, because free

will is not an _effect_; on a second interpretation, there is a

conflict, but there is no reason to believe that the second formulation

is even true.

 

This section will go further and offer four positive arguments for the

existence of free will, deriving from an earlier paper of mine on John

Searle's philosophy of mind.

 

A. The Argument from Observation

 

First, there is the simple fact of observation. I

observe that I choose freely, at least sometimes; and if

you introspect, you will see it too. There is no reason to

assume that these observations are illusory, any more than

there is reason to assume that vision or hearing is illusory.

I frequently hear scientists declare that real science (as

opposed to bogus Aristotelian science) rests on

observation; that is, they take the observed facts as a

given, and work from there. The insistence that free will

does not exist has more in common with the worst a priori

scholasticism than with modern science. The latter

demanded that the facts fit the theory, while the essence

of science is supposed to be that we make our theories fit

the observed facts.

 

I would like to see a single argument

for rejecting introspective evidence in favor of the other

senses, because any argument against the validity of

introspection might be applied, ipso facto, to sight,

hearing, touch, taste, and smell. In other words, I maintain that

introspective evidence is just as good (and no more subjective) than

any other sort of empirical evidence. And it is not the place of

science to determine that our perceptions are fundamentally in error,

but rather to develop a consistent explanation of _all_ of our

observations. Of course, if an experiment comes out one way 1000 times,

and a different way once, then the scientist will rationally conclude

that there was problem a problem in the experiment. But our observation

of our mental freedom is not an occasional fluke, but an empirical fact

as repeatedly and continuously confirmed as the existence of the

external world itself.

 

B. The Reductio Ad Absurdum to Skepticism

 

My second argument consists in a reductio ab absurdum. I shall

begin with the assumption of determinism, and show that it leads to

the self-contradictory position of abject skepticism.

 

Now it is a fact that people disagree on

many questions; this leads us to wonder if on any given

issue we are correct. How is the determinist to come to grips with

this? If the content of my mind is

determined entirely on the level of micro-particles, how

would I ever double-check my views? I would be

determined to believe them; and if arguments convinced

me, then they would be determined to convince me. The crucial

point is that my views -- correct and incorrect alike --

would be the result of inexorable causal forces.

And these forces determine people to error just as inexorably as

they determine them to truth. Of course, I might be

correct by coincidence. But knowledge is _justified_ true

belief; and when we are pre-determined to believe

whatever we happen to believe no matter what, it is hard

to see what the justification of our beliefs is.

 

Put succinctly, if we have knowledge we must accept beliefs

only because we understand them to be true; but if

determinism is correct, then we automatically accept

whatever beliefs that our constituent micro-particles

impose on us, since as Searle says, scientific explanation

works from the bottom up. It might be the case that those

micro-particles coincidentally make me believe true

things, but the truth would not be the ultimate causal agent

acting upon me.

 

Determinism, then, leads to skepticism, the denial of the

possibility of justified true belief. This is a

controversial issue, but I hold that skepticism is

necessarily false. For suppose we affirm skepticism. Then

we may wonder if we know that skepticism is true. If we do

know it, then at least one item of objective knowledge

exists, which contradicts the premise. But if we don't know

that skepticism is true either, why should we accept it? To

recap: Determinism implies skepticism; Skepticism is

necessarily false; Hence determinism is false.

 

C. Moore's Proof of the External World Extended

 

Third, I bring G.E. Moore to my defense. In his "Proof of

the External World," Moore refuted skepticism about

physical objects merely by saying, "Here is a hand, and here

is another hand." Critics accused Moore of begging the

question; and the critical reader of this paper might object

that I am merely repeating my first argument. Both of

these complaints simply miss Moore's point, which was this:

 

In order for any argument to work, it is necessary that the

initial plausibility of its premises have greater initial

plausibility than those of the denial of its conclusion. Since no

premise has greater initial plausibility than "This is a

hand," said Moore, it is in principle impossible for that

claim to be overturned. I think that the same is true of the

existence of free will. Nothing has greater initial

plausibility than the premise "I have free will"; no scientific

or philosophical argument will ever have greater initial

plausibility. So how is it even coherent to argue against

free will? Any valid argument showing that free will does not

exist serves merely as a reductio ad absurdum of that arguments'

premises, not a disproof of the freedom of the will.

 

As A side note, it is interesting that John Searle , a

reluctant opponent of the doctrine of free will,

says that he continues to

believe in free will no matter how many arguments against

it that he hears. This shows quite well that Searle finds the

initial plausibility of "Searle has free will" to be greater

than that of his arguments against free will; for if the

arguments against free will were really that powerful,

Searle would do what we usually do when overwhelmed by

convincing arguments: Namely, change his mind. Since he

can't change his mind, the initial plausibility of his free will

must exceed the plausibility of the apparently conflicting

scientific arguments. Given this, he should re-examine the

propositions of science and his philosophy of mind and see

if they are really harder to doubt than the existence of

free will.

 

D. A Thought Experiment Showing the Freedom of the Will

 

Fourth, try the following thought experiment. Our

brilliant neurophysiologists come up with an equation that

they claim will predict all of our behavior. The equation is

so good that it even incorporates our reaction to the

equation, our reaction to knowing that it incorporates our

reaction, and so on indefinitely. Suppose that the equation

says that the next thing that you will do is raise your arm.

Do you seriously believe that you couldn't falsify this

prediction by failing to raise your arm? But if you can

falsify any prediction about your arm, and if the prediction

is derived perfectly from a comprehensive knowledge of

your body's constituent micro-particles, then your mind

must be free.

 

In a crucial sense, then, the denial of free will is predicated

on our ignorance of the very causal laws that supposedly show that

free will is impossible. For once these allegedly binding laws of

nature were compiled and capable of making falsifiable empirical

predictions, it would be child's play to falsify them forthwith.

Surely if human behavior were unfree, then science could in theory

at least predict when I am going to raise my hand. And why should

the equations be unable to compensate for the subject's knowledge

of the prediction? And yet, it is very hard to believe that upon

the proclamation of these alleged causal laws, that I would find

it any harder to falsify them than I would find it to falsify e.g.

the reader's prediction about when I will raise my hand.

 

Nor would it help if these scientific laws were probabilistic rather

than deterministic. It is child's play to falsify the prediction

that I will raise my right hand now with certainty. Is it any

harder to falsify the claim that I will now raise by right hand with

probability .3? Simply by deciding not to raise it, couldn't I

instantly make the probability equal to zero?

 

7. Some Objections to and Misconceptions about the Freedom of the Will

 

A. Are some choices more difficult than others?

 

There is a rather common view which admits that the will is free in

some of the cases I assert, but denies that it is free in other cases.

For example, it may be conceded that the normal person is free to

use or not use alcohol; but certain people are not free to not use it.

The choice is "too hard" for them to make. There are many variations

on this theme, and I have a common objection to all of them.

 

Now the underlying image here seems to be that the will is kind of

like a muscle. Just as the ability to lift weights depends on the

strength of the lifter and the heaviness of the weights, the ability

to make a choice depends on the will power of the willer and the

difficulty of the choice. People make choices only within fairly

narrow bounds; beyond these, apparently, they are fully determined.

 

My objection to this is basically that it just contradicts experience.

Imagine that there were a button in front of you, the pressing of

which would instantly exterminate all human life. You would not

(I hope) want to press this button. But can you really say that you

do not feel just as _free_ to do so as you would to dial a phone number?

Suppose someone pointed a gun at you and told you to push the button.

Would you not be free to refrain? But if you are free in these extreme

cases, how could you be unfree to refrain from drinking alcohol or

taking any number of choices which appear to be much "easier"?

 

The essential confusion, I think, it between the emotional experience

of a choice vs. the choice itself. The emotions associated with a

choice may range from incredibly pleasant to incredibly unpleasant.

Pleasant choices are "easier" not in the sense that they are more free

than other choices, but in the sense that we are more inclined to freely

choose it because it is pleasant. To talk of the difficulty of a choice

can be very misleading, because it conjures up the image of there being

some definite probability of succeeding at making a choice despite

genuinely trying; but this just brings us back to the probabilistic

misinterpretation of free will which I have already shown is just

as contrary to the freedom of the will as all-out determinism.

 

B. Is Choice Limited to a Select Few?

 

A variant on the above doctrine affirms that certain people (such as

fellow philosophers) have free will, but that the mass of people don't.

Free will is appararently a byproduct of intelligence and education.

Generalizing from introspection to the whole human race is simply

mistaken; the sensible induction extends only to a narrow elite of

one's fellows.

 

I answer that the broadest induction is indeed justified.

Almost all humans use the language and concepts of free will.

They blame and praise each other for their actions in a way suggesting

moral responsibility. And most plausibly, they do so because they

are generalizing to other people from _their_ own experience of freedom.

To suggest that they are merely aping the vocabulary of philosophers

is quite absurd; it is philosophers who picked up the concepts of

free choice from ordinary language, not the other way around.

Actually, it could easily be argued that the experience of free will

permeates the lives of ordinary people to a greater extent than

it does intellectuals. An intellectual might buy the murderers

excuse that his life in the slums drove him to brutality, but the

non-murderers who grew up in the same slums are likely to think of

his action as a willful choice to do evil.

 

C. The Objection from Regularity

 

One fairly common objection to the doctrine of free will is that

different groups behave consistently differently than one another on

matters that I say are free. But if they are really free, how could

these systematic differences be explained?

 

The explanation, of course, is simply that members of some groups

make different _choices_ than members of other groups _on average_.

There is nothing amazing about this. The typical criminal makes

a long series of brutal choices over his life; there is a systematic

pattern to his choices. Does this show that each of his actions was

not a choice? But if there is no conflict between an _individual_

making systematically different choices than other people and the

doctrine of free will, why should there be any more of a conflict

etween a _group_ of individuals making systematically different

choices and the doctrine of free will?

 

D. The Objection from Inexplicability

 

Another objection to the doctrine of free will is that it renders

a persons choices inexplicable. And in a sense, this is correct:

a choice is necessarily, by definition, impervious to a causal

explanation. If there were a causal explanation, then the agent

would have been determined to take his actions, and then they would

not have been free.

 

But there is really no paradox here, anyway. Of course it is possible

to "explain" a choice, in the sense of describing the actor's

motives, goals, impulses, and so on. But we must remember that

these were simply the factors that the agent chose to go along with;

we are explaining which factors out of the cosmos of possibilities

that the actor drew upon when making his choice.

 

8. Conclusion.

 

In a way, it is strange to even write about the freedom of the will.

The issue is not one of abstract concepts or a priori reasoning, but

simply a matter of empirical fact. The most telling proof for the

existence of free will is that we all observe it during our every

waking moment. The only basis for the denial stems from the

arbitrary exclusion of introspection as a valid source of empirical

knowledge, coupled with one unpersuasive interpretation of the law of

causality. And while I do not choose to address the related issues

at length within the confines of this essay, they cannot be overlooked.

Free will is perhaps more than any other the distinctively human

attribute which sets us apart from everything else. The denial of

our freedom leads to the denial of virtue and vice, individual

responsibility, and the value of political freedom. And

ultimately, this denial of our free will leads to the

dehumanization of us all.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

The theological doctrine of divine foreknowledge is often alleged to be in conflict with human freedom. After all, if God knows exactly what will happen, right down to every choice you make, how can your choices be free? God's already-true or timelessly-true knowledge about your choices seems to constrain your freedom. This problem is related to the Aristotelian problem of the sea-battle: tomorrow there will or will not be a sea-battle. If there will be one, then it was true yesterday that there would be one. Then it would be necessary that the sea battle will occur. If there won't be one, then by similar reasoning, it is necessary that it won't occur. This means that the future, whatever it is, is completely fixed by past truths -- true propositions about the future. And if what will be, will be, why bother trying? Such fatalistic arguments -- arguments that only the actual world is possible -- are usually rife with modal mistakes. A good introduction to the problems of modality is to try to debunk such arguments by isolating their specious entailments.

 

In philosophy, modality is the subject concerning necessity, contingency, possibility, impossibility, actuality, and related predicates. The claim "'2+2=4' is necessary" is a modal claim, as is the claim "'Bigfoot exists' is possible". Necessary propositions either couldn't have been true or couldn't have been otherwise -- perhaps logical and mathematical propositions qualify. Contingent propositions could have been true, but also could have been false -- perhaps "Jupiter exists" qualifies. Possible propositions could have been true -- they include necessary and contingent propositions. Impossible propositions couldn't have been true -- perhaps self-contradictory claims qualify.

Modal claims are to be distinguished from similar-sounding epistemic claims. When a philosopher claims that Bigfoot possibly exists, he probably does not mean "Bigfoot might actually exist, for all I know". Rather, he is making a metaphysical claim concerning ways the world could have been, a substantive claim with apparent ontological commitments. 'Epistemic possibility', on the other hand, just traces the confines of our knowledge. "It is possible that p" may be glossed as "I (or we humans) don't know that p is false". It is a claim about those matters about which we have no knowledge one way or the other. When philosophers say "possible", they usually mean the former. An illustration: Someone asks you if 54 squared is 2926 and you stammer, "I don't know, I suppose it's possible". This is 'for all we know' possibility. For, as it turns out 54 squared is 2916 -- and it is metaphysically impossible for it to have been otherwise (say, 2926).

 

How to best interpret modal claims is a live issue for metaphysicians. Sometimes modal concepts are cashed out in terms of a "possible worlds idiom", which would translate the claim about Bigfoot as "There is some possible world in which Bigfoot exists". To maintain that Bigfoot's existence is possible, but not actual, one could say, "There is some possible world in which Bigfoot exists; but in the actual world, Bigfoot does not exist".

 

This idiom still leaves unclear what we are committing ourselves to when we make modal claims. Are we really alleging the existence of possible worlds, every bit as real as our actual world, just not actual? Renowned philosopher David K. Lewis infamously bit the bullet and said yes, possible worlds are as real as our own. This position is called "modal realism". Unsurprisingly, most philosophers are unwilling to sign on to this particular doctrine, seeking alternate ways to paraphrase away the apparent ontological commitments implied by our modal claims