God, Moral Evil, and Man's Nature

[Cheerful Charlie]

Tyche, Goddess of fate. Who assigned you your fate, at random. A good life for some, slavery or death for others. An obscure goddess until about 250 BCE when she started to become popular, if that's the word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyche

 

[Learner]

If God can see all that is, and including the future, all is determined and there is no free will. Free will is an illusion and no tool at all. In a timeless Universe, Got creates all including all that is, and so all we do is a direct creation of God, including all moral evil we "do". Martin Luther in his "Bondage Of The Will", struggled with these puzzles and in the end, found no way out. All he could do is throw logic out the window and fall back on the non-solution, "God is incomprehensible."

Perhaps you're right by your mentioned concept. Understandably the only alternative would be, that freewill is an illusion if when all things are determined by God. For both sides of the argument they would both concur with Martin Luther that "God is incomprehensible". Perhaps the possibilty for arguments sake can suggest both Freewill and determinism can both contradict and compliment each other.( Yet more paradoxes!)

If God knows every outcome for example; one road journey you are a rich man the other you are a poor man, a good or evil man on other alternative journeys, like parrallell worlds but not quite. I guess this would still be determinism as you say. All possible scenarios that were created and would have been seen. I can only fathom in simplistic terms ;The aspect of freewill, even if an illusion could still be lightly 'deterministic free' only in the reserved space made for individuals to choose one outcome of the many to be set in stone. Complete and written down,to be judged. (By Christian belief)

It wouldn't make sense if God is said to be rewarding or punishing any individuals if all thing were deterministically fixed. Especially to Love and be loved.

I'd state the views of ancient Greeks a little differently.There's Fate and Providence, Fate being whatever your situation is, you fated to it. Providence represents unperceived potential. When someone recognizes their fate and seeks to change it, they look for ways to do that, and what they find is in the realm of providence.Free will is inherent, not only in looking to Providence, but in recognizing fate.

Thats a good way of putting things in this repect. I can see this in a similar way. If I were to go back in time I would choose differently. 'Unpercieved potential,recognizing fate and changing it.' I believe this is what happens.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes it It is a difficult notion to think "freewill" is anything other than being non compatible with omnipotence. However this non compaitblility idea is currently flawed because this statement is only derived from a logic limited by what we only know of ourselves in human terms and what we know of the universe to date.

Considering we have accepted multi universes or parrallell universe ideas and dimensions. An omnipotence entitiy knowing everything would also see many choices made of the same road and varied final outcomes all at once in a non linear state and why not?. Mans comprehension is logical only to the linear experience . This 'freewill' would be our tool and so by ourselves we make those decisions to end up with one of the many possible outcomes already seen by this entitity.

Ok this is pure imagination but there is a large hole where there needs to be more entered in the philosophical equation regarding the'freewill' contradiction.

If God can see all that is, and including the future, all is determined and there is no free will.

I have never found this argument very agreeable. That somehow, what ability a third party has, somehow inflicts limitations on the first party. Let's take two simple situations, a universe without god and the exact same universe with god, one that is outside of time and can view existence of all time like we look at the beginning and ending of a wall in front of us.

In the first universe we have our actions. There is no god that knows what these actions were or would be. But in the end, we only have one set of actions.
In the second identical universe, we have our actions. There is a god that knows what we will do and won't do. In the end, we only have one set of actions.

How does god's knowledge of our actions before hand change free will? There seems to be a misinterpretation between knowing what will happen (doesn't kill free will) and causing what will happen (no free will).

Free will is an illusion and no tool at all. In a timeless Universe, God creates all including all that is, and so all we do is a direct creation of God, including all moral evil we "do". Martin Luther in his "Bondage Of The Will", struggled with these puzzles and in the end, found no way out. All he could do is throw logic out the window and fall back on the non-solution, "God is incomprehensible."

And Issac Newton was into alchemy. I could quote Neil Peart and say "Fate is just a wave of circumstances." But I won't because quoting people, even smart people, doesn't make something true, though I think Peart's statement has strong accuracy.

 

[Atheos]

The most compelling illustration I ever saw about this was the library analogy. Everyone's life story is already written in a book in a library. No matter how compelling my perception is that I am making choices it is only an illusion I have because I haven't read the book yet. But someone else has and everything is going to happen exactly as it did when that person read the book.

This illusion is shared to some extent by a reader of the book for the first time. But once the book has been read the illusion vanishes (depending on whether or not the reader suffers from significant memory loss issues).

Another relevant analogy is to compare the future with the past. No matter what I do I cannot change the past. If there is someone with the same (or even better) "recollection" of my future that I have of my own past then no matter what I do I cannot change the future either.

These make sense to me. It seems that if it is possible for someone to know everything I will ever do then I only live with the illusion of free will.

I do not, however, believe it is possible for someone to know these things, so to me the point is moot.

We had this argument with (now banned user) Self-Mutation years ago. He kept arguing that "This doesn't mean God forces us to do things." But we'd argue back that he was right. But it still meant we didn't actually have free will.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

If God creates all, including the future he sees, then there is no free will and all is determined. And this is indeed the argument derived from the Bible, agreed to finally by Augustine, and later by Luther and Calvin. Who weakly then sought a way out by stating God is incomprehensible. Which isn't an answer.

Again, there are differing theories as to how God forsees the future, all problematic.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If God creates all, including the future he sees, then there is no free will and all is determined. And this is indeed the argument derived from the Bible, agreed to finally by Augustine, and later by Luther and Calvin. Who weakly then sought a way out by stating God is incomprehensible. Which isn't an answer.

Again, there are differing theories as to how God forsees the future, all problematic.

There's the Calvinist version. We don't have any control over what happens. But we do have control over our attitude to what happens. That's where the Christian faith enters into it. And the belief thingy only has to do with making the "correct" interpretation, rather than changing your behaviour. I think this is a really clever Christian "solution" to the omniscience paradox.

Don't worry, guys. I still think there's a gazillion other problems with the Christian formulation of God. I just liked this one. It's so rare for Christians to be this clever. When they are I just want to tip my hat in respect to them for trying.

 

[Atheos]

If God creates all, including the future he sees, then there is no free will and all is determined. And this is indeed the argument derived from the Bible, agreed to finally by Augustine, and later by Luther and Calvin. Who weakly then sought a way out by stating God is incomprehensible. Which isn't an answer.

Again, there are differing theories as to how God forsees the future, all problematic.

There's the Calvinist version. We don't have any control over what happens. But we do have control over our attitude to what happens. That's where the Christian faith enters into it. And the belief thingy only has to do with making the "correct" interpretation, rather than changing your behaviour. I think this is a really clever Christian "solution" to the omniscience paradox.

Don't worry, guys. I still think there's a gazillion other problems with the Christian formulation of God. I just liked this one. It's so rare for Christians to be this clever. When they are I just want to tip my hat in respect to them for trying.

I certainly don't have a problem with giving credit where credit is due. And christian thinkers have come up with some exceedingly creative thoughts; of that there is no doubt.

The problem I have with this rationalization is what it does to the concept of morality. It essentially reduces morality to a point where it doesn't matter what you do. It only matters what you think. To date I haven't encountered many Christians who are comfortable occupying that ground.

 

[Underseer]

There's the Calvinist version. We don't have any control over what happens. But we do have control over our attitude to what happens. That's where the Christian faith enters into it. And the belief thingy only has to do with making the "correct" interpretation, rather than changing your behaviour. I think this is a really clever Christian "solution" to the omniscience paradox.

Don't worry, guys. I still think there's a gazillion other problems with the Christian formulation of God. I just liked this one. It's so rare for Christians to be this clever. When they are I just want to tip my hat in respect to them for trying.

I certainly don't have a problem with giving credit where credit is due. And christian thinkers have come up with some exceedingly creative thoughts; of that there is no doubt.

The problem I have with this rationalization is what it does to the concept of morality. It essentially reduces morality to a point where it doesn't matter what you do. It only matters what you think. To date I haven't encountered many Christians who are comfortable occupying that ground.

It's worse than that.

They define morality as obedience. That simply is not morality. It reduces morality to something completely arbitrary, as was demonstrated thousands of years ago by the Euthyphro dilemma.

Yes, the Euthyphro dilemma is traditionally about gods, but it applies to any authority. No authority can make you more moral, regardless of who or what the authority is. Trying to use an authority-derived moral system results in the most extreme form of moral relativism imaginable that makes mockery of the very idea of morality (e.g. it's moral if the authority commands it, but not if you command the same thing). It doesn't matter if the authority is a real god, a fake god, a preacher, the government, a cop, or an ethics professor, an authority can only demand your obedience and said obedience will not and can not make you more moral.

 

[Learner]

It's worse than that.

They define morality as obedience. That simply is not morality. It reduces morality to something completely arbitrary, as was demonstrated thousands of years ago by the Euthyphro dilemma.

Yes, the Euthyphro dilemma is traditionally about gods, but it applies to any authority. No authority can make you more moral, regardless of who or what the authority is. Trying to use an authority-derived moral system results in the most extreme form of moral relativism imaginable that makes mockery of the very idea of morality (e.g. it's moral if the authority commands it, but not if you command the same thing). It doesn't matter if the authority is a real god, a fake god, a preacher, the government, a cop, or an ethics professor, an authority can only demand your obedience and said obedience will not and can not make you more moral.

Understanding your point. As with a wide range of people,Christians deal with 'good and evil'. To some, if not most Christians;the meaning of morality is derived from the very nature of 'good and evil' . (coinciding the belief of 'freewill'.)

 

[Learner]

Having said that in previous post .. Those in religion would still commit henious crimes and yet still believe he or she are still morally good. The belief in destroying those they consider evil in their eyes . (As documented in historic records )

 

[DrZoidberg]

Having said that in previous post .. Those in religion would still commit henious crimes and yet still believe he or she are still morally good. The belief in destroying those they consider evil in their eyes . (As documented in historic records )

That's usually true for anybody committing heinous crimes. Even Hitler thought he was the good guy. He thought of himself a good Christian doing God's work.