do we have it?
all this talk about god had made me wounder.
please discus.
all this talk about god had made me wounder.
please discus.
Freewill?
- Thread starter HippieKai
- Start date
restricted freewill is what i have.
as well as pondering the idea of freewill,
i was also curious if there IS a God, and he is all powerfull, why does he allow evil? shouldn't there be less of it? i mean whats up with that? Do we need evil to see that there is good? And if thats the case why is there so much? couldn't there be less evil and we could see that evil was evil and good was good?
i was also curious if there IS a God, and he is all powerfull, why does he allow evil? shouldn't there be less of it? i mean whats up with that? Do we need evil to see that there is good? And if thats the case why is there so much? couldn't there be less evil and we could see that evil was evil and good was good?
how could it just be restricted?Originally posted by ALEXIS_DH
restricted freewill is what i have.
maybe we just think we are making choices!
think about it this way...every decision you make is based on a past experience (whether you know it or not some psycologist will say) so are you deciding? or are you being forced because of prior causes. which would mean your not choosing but being led.
God (it is said) knows what you are going to do every step of the way. So if he knows or has it planed is it then your choice or are you mearly a puppet!?
lets say there is a god, who happens to be perfect, and created man just like him (perfect) and gave him freewill.
but his freewill makes him do evil stuff, like adams apple. evil is not perfect, thus man is not perfect, thus if he was made like god, then god was not perfect.
and if he was not made like god, then god was not perfect either, because his design is flawed with a freewill that seems to choose evil sometimes.
thus, even if there is a god, its impossible its a perfect god.
he still maybe be perfect if he decided to give us free will though. If it was his choice to let us be able to choose knowing that we would do evil, then he isn't flawed...just us.
But that brings me to the "why so much evil?"
because even if i'm right and he did choose to let us do evil don't you think he would of put a cap on how much evil we could do?
But i guess that interfers with the freewill part!!!!!
ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND!
oh....and we were only created in his "image" or what he looks like, not how he is or we would all be gods
(which i beleive i am
)
my restricted freewill is some sort of funny paradox i made up to illustrate what is not.
if every decision i make is based on previous experience that leds me to a conclusion. then you have an infinite chain of cause and effect. which life is not. the best way to avoid an infiinte chain is not to enter it first.
every situation is different, thus there is a chance an old correct answer will be wrong this time.
what makes me thing so??? well, for me its a tree of posibilities, just like chess, whatever move i make that will give me the maximum tactical output will be the one ill make.
the decision is a little based on previous games, and a lot more based on the current situation. just because i could ruy lopez and win in 4 moves before to a rookie, does not mean i'll work all the time.
am i a puppet? hmm, thats sort of a logical mobius strip. logically its impossible to know.
if he indeed gave us freewill, and our freewil chooses wrong, its a design flaw, because if we choose evil, its because there is something messed up with us. and if all we are just comes from god. then that can be the only source of our error.
perfection cannot produce imperfection.
in the spanish translation of the bible, man are made "a imagen y semejanza" which means both look alike and alike the inside.
yeah but in a situation like chess you are making your decision based on what the other persons move was. Your right not every game will be a 4 move victory. But thats because people will move peices differently making you move your deifferently. So you have made a decision based on a prior cause. And if you had tried to make the same 4 moves you had last time despite what the other person was doing it would be based on the fact that you didn't know any better than to do what you knew had used to work (also based on the past). Or that you didn't care about the game because of something else going on that had had to affect your poor game playing BEFORE you decided to play like a doof.
then that would mean we are JUST like God right?
or is there a limit to how much we could be like him? Because if there is a limit to how much we are like him who says it could be just looks and thought...and that we still had choices...no one can say for sure because no one knows...and thats part of this problem...uncertainty.
If we were JUST like him we would be Gods.
you gotta define your timeframe. recalling other games to a present game is like recalling past decisions to actual ones.
considering the last move to make your next is within the context of present. because the last move set your present decision making frame. so its a new situation.
if you were to decided based on what worked in another game or life situation without considering the present frame. (skill of opponent, time to play, etc, etc, etc). then yes you'd be led to move, but the fact that people make different decision, at different situations, thus, making new situations all the time. tells you no-one is led into one by the past.
otherwise, past would just repeat itself continously.
the fact we are not and our limitations, can only mean 2 things.
either we are not made like god, like the bible says. thus making the bible imperfect.
or
god, being just like us, is also like us, imperfect.
the time frame doesn't matter.
one minute, 4 days, one onehundredth of a second.
If you are making a decision you are making it on something that you have observed. Whether it was just two seconds ago on the oppenents last move or ten minutes ago on his move before that. Being a good player you would be deciding your course of action based on both moves, but your still deciding based on your PAST knowlege of how to play and his PAST move or moves.
which is the higher of the two possibilities because it was writen by us and controled by us and rewriten by us over and over. And if we arn't JUST like him than we wouldn't have it writen perfect. Ergo he could still be perfect and chosen to give us an imperfection being "freewill"
timeframe does matter. because present is extremely hard to define without timeframes.
if you were only to move based on previous experience, then you'd get to a point where you'd move always the same.
the fact that never happens, tells you future implications play a bigger roll than past experience to decide. and your perseption of future implications depends on your present. thus not making you a follower of past experience.
how can imperfection grow from perfection???
either he is, thus making everythign that comes from him perfect too.
or not.
you cannot be perfect if you make something imperfect. even if it is giving an flawed freewill.
If you were only to move THE SAME then you would wouldn't be learning from things that did or didn't work in different situations. So your right...if we were to move bassed on our past move, or move the same because it worked once, then we would be stuck in a repition. But since we learn from our past then we change what we do. If something works we may repeat it but only until it stops working. then we change what we do to make something else work. So you make a good point if we arn't learing, but because we learn , we then change, but we learn and change because of the past.
And if you ask a cognitive psycologist or a philosifer about the present time....they will tell you that we can not act in THE present because by the time our minds have proccesed any info that has happened time has already moved on...so in a sense we are always behind time in our minds. And since time moves from the point of happening to the point of our recognition of what happened (however small that time is) we are forced to decide things based on "the past"
and yes we can think about what is about to happen in the future and start to decide our move bassed on what we think will happen but if what we thought were not to happen and we were to play as if what we thought accualy DID happen we would be playing off of our minds and not reality.
Why not?
if he is all powerfull and perfect.....can't he do anything he wants?
or is perfection and absolute power different.
if he purposely gave us an imperfect freewill, then he is imperfect. how can somebody be perfect and give you a wrong advise or a wrong tool??? and here we get back to like 5 posts ago.
if he did it without realizing, then he is imperfect as well. because he could not anticipate the problem.
and yes, perfect and absolute power are different.
he cannot be all powerfull and perfect at the same time. if he is perfect, then he cannot do imperfect things, thus he is not absolute powerful, if he is absolute powerful, he could do imperfect things, thus being imperfect.
just like "god making a stone so big he-she cannot lift" it paradox.
you play and make decision on your mind, until reality happens. be it that reality is what you thought, or not.
yes, you are strictly living always in the past. but, if that is the case, then present will never happen, and future will never get here. thats more of a semantical problem than a true freewill problem.
for most practical reasons, present is a timeframe mix of inmediate past and inmediate future.
freewill is restricted by your experience, BUT is not defined by it.
i like that paradox it's a fun one!
so what now?
we have to decide wether God is all powerfull or perfect?
and you have thrown out the idea that maybe God has a choice too.
If he can do anything, he could decide to give us a flaw in order to let us learn or have freewill.
But that wouldn't make him perfect....unless we don't uderstand perfection...maybe in order to be perfect you must first understand imperfection. So you would have to know evil and experience evil in order to become good or perfect!
But that goes AAAAALLL the way back to my question "why so much evil" like i said
ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND AND ROUND!
i think what it all comes down to is a higher understanding of things that our meeger little human minds cant comprehend. Or maybe even being all powerfull means you can't create a parodox because a parodox would undo your all powerfullness!
anyhow...this is fun we should keep it up
...but i'm going to take a brake to go play some "killer instinct" on the old nintendo 64
so thats what you meant by "restricted freewill"
i like that...i like that a lot!
Oh, sorry, I'll leave you two alone. :devil:
:devil:
yup, thats "restricted freewill" imho.
add some laws and ethics and there you go.
Well let me ask you this, what is dark? It's simply something that we call the absent of light. What is cold? It's the absence of heat. What is evil? Its the absence of good or God.
Nick
Nick
You have freewill, there is no doubt about that. Just because God knows what you will choose doesn't mean you didn't have the freewill to make the choice.
As for the why does God allow so much evil, why does God let bad things happen, etc. there are religious explanations for that. I forgot though, guess I wasn't paying attention in Sunday School
But anyways, the deist believe that God is like a clockmaker. He puts everything into place, starts the clock ticking and let it's run. From that moment on he is hands off. That could be one explanation. God also says he will be back to reclaim his kingdom, presumably after everything goes to hell (no pun intended). If God were fixing things all along the way there would be no need to come back because everything would be just peachy. That all has to do with the rapture and whether it will be pre or post tribulation, and that's a whole other can of worms.
Keep in mind that the way in which you are examining this issue is a distinctly Christian perspective. This discussion goes nowhere unless you define a framework and a set of basic precepts.
If there is a god and he is all knowing and has a divine plan then we only think we have free will. God has already decided what our WILL will be.
Oy...!!! My head already hurts...the last time I tried to discuss this subject someone brought in physics 
I'll relegate myself to the sidelines and periodically put in one liner quips methinks
I'll relegate myself to the sidelines and periodically put in one liner quips methinks
If god is all knowing, then he has always known what decisions we will make. If the choices we make have always been known, then we only have the illusion of free will.
EDIT - If this isn't true and we do indeed have free will, then god is not omnicient and therefor cannot be considered all powerful.
EDIT - If this isn't true and we do indeed have free will, then god is not omnicient and therefor cannot be considered all powerful.
Okay...devils advocate question then:
If we have NO freewill, then how can there be a heaven or hell, because if you have no choice in the actions you take in life then how can you be condemned to hell for that which you never had an option in? And how can god be sure that you truly have faith in him or were true to him if you have no freewill or self-determination?
To continue on that thread of thought...
If everything in life is predetermined by events that have come before, then how can we condemn a person to prison, life or death? How can we judge another if they had no ability to choose how events would take place?
If everything in life is predetermined by events that have come before, then how can we condemn a person to prison, life or death? How can we judge another if they had no ability to choose how events would take place?
If god knows our choices before they are made, it means free will is an illusion, even if god didn't do anything to directly alter those decisions.
How did I stay out of this discussion for so long?
I do think He gives us the choice to chose His way or not.
(These thoughts I have are based on the Scriptures and how God has acted in the past, not my own random thoughts)
I agree, just because God know's what will happen doesn't nessecarily mean He influences it. There are times I think He choses to act and times He doesn't.
I do think He gives us the choice to chose His way or not.
(These thoughts I have are based on the Scriptures and how God has acted in the past, not my own random thoughts)
In this line of thought, condemning someone to prison for example would also be pre-determined.