Free Will and The Cosmological Argument.

[LiamOS]

The Cosmological Argument - Wikipedia

Many Theists, Deists and Non-Theists argue that not only does the universe's existence necessitate a cause. The Theists and Deists often posit that the cause is a supreme being.
Most Theists and some Deists further posit that said being has granted us free agency; that is to do according to something other than what simple physical interaction would otherwise dictate.


In positing free will, has a violation of causality not been necessarily invoked?
One premise of the Cosmological argument is that causality holds true, which logically dictates that our actions necessitate cause.

For debate:
-Is it possible to reconcile the Cosmological Argument with Free Will?

[scourge99]

.
Note: "Presupposition, speculation, conjecture and opinion" means approximately the same as "I just made it up in my mind because it fits what I want to believe and makes my argument sound authentic. Don't ask me for evidence or verification because there isn't any".

What is offered to substantiate, verify, or confirm that this premise is true?

Presupposition, speculation, conjecture and opinion

How did you (or others) determine which things are do-able by an omnipotent being?

Presupposition, speculation, conjecture and opinion

How did you (or others) determine which things are knowable by an omniscient being?

Presupposition, speculation, conjecture and opinion

Lastly, how did you (or others) determine that future choices are unknowable by an omniscient/omnipotent god?

Presupposition, speculation, conjecture and opinion

I enjoyed this:
EduChris Wrote:

God has limited his knowledge for the sake of genuine mutuality and vulnerability in his relationship with us.

Ignoring for a moment that there is some difference between God not knowing the future and limiting his knowledge, how does God limit his knowledge, a form of lying, or not know something God knows?
Of course we could go to EduChris' other step and claim God is the ground of all being which pretty much would make everything starting from the ground up an emanation of God and if knowledge is contingent then God could very well have been dumb as a rock as the universe was unfolding. Then there is the other step where God is outside of time and space.
If you slow down the apologies and arguments and he step here and there it might look like a graceful dance just like a drunk thinks they can dance, but speed it up and it looks just like the clumsy, ungraceful movements.

And exactly 10 angels can dance on the head of a pin....

[scanini]

BUT chris, if something KNOWS the outcome of an action for 100% certainty then its not random or subject to change, hence no freewill.

Hence my belief that God does not know our future decisions and actions with 100% certainty. God has limited his knowledge for the sake of genuine mutuality and vulnerability in his relationship with us.

Not all Christians are (predestinarian) Calvinists, you know...

I apologise, you are the first i have met. This is a moment for me, i will have to compose myself.

Pleased to meet you sir.

[Grumpy]

EduChris

We give credibility to a consensus of experts, but who is an "expert" on subjective religious experience? If we're not going to allow for the common human experience, then we're in for a whole host of problems.

Really, the common human "experience" is that magic is responsible for everything. It is highly uncommon(given the length of time humans have existed)to develop scientific explanations for, say, lightning and thunder.

Scientific paradigms come and go. Last time I checked, science can't even tell us whether our little spot in the universe consists of three dimensions, or only two.

It's actually 11, but I digress. Science corrects itself, I wish religion could do the same. But then, it would no longer exist, of course. It would correct itself clean out of existence. In fact, the whole of human experience is the shrinking of this magical world from whole pantheons of magical beings(sort of like ancient soap opera)to one lonely old man. Would the last theist please turn out the lights.

He says the odds against such an occurrence are fantastic, but nevertheless the chance exists, given enough time.

It is highly unlikely, but within the realm of the possible(barely)that all of the molecules making up the air in your room will go in the same direction at the same time, spontaneously, leaving you in a vacuum. But it would be foolish to sit around in a sealed space suit.

Physical matter is governed by causality

No, that is an illusion caused by the "averaging out" of quantum effects with massive numbers of particle events. The quantum effects themselves often precede the cause or have no cause at all, but the average appears to follow strictly with causality because the vast majority do that very thing. Once you start observing the fine grain reality there is no predicting what a particular particle will do at any particular time, it is pure chaos. The particle exists in all possible conditions at all possible speeds until observation causes the collapse of the probability cloud. Even then you can only measure it's position or it's vector, not both.

It all boils down to God creating us with some capacity for autonomous moral action. This seems entirely consistent with my own personal experience, and with the overwhelming common experience of humans generally. If science cannot explain "how" this autonomy works, that just points out what we all know already: science doesn't have all the answers, and it never will.

This is nothing but bare assertion. You cannot evidence god, you cannot evidence that he created anything, your personal experience is entirely subjective to your own interpretation and common experience(and the subjective interpretation thereof)has been shown to be completely inaccurate(actually, pure fantasy. Lightning is not Odin's Spear, thunder is not Thor's Hammer). Science cannot explain what does not exist. This is not a failure of science, it is your inability to show there is anything to explain. You keep saying "God did..." or "God wants..." when the truth is you don't have a clue about either, it's all pure speculation based on superstition, tradition and subjective interpretation of experiences, yet you are certain.

Science admits up front that absolute certainty is not possible, but it keeps correcting itself, getting closer and closer to the "bull's eye". Religion asserts certainty, constantly redrawing the "bull's eye" around wherever it happen's to be at the time. The effectiveness of the two paradigms is in the results. Thousands of years of religion has resulted in a constantly changing story explaining reality but no evidence of any understanding of that reality. The last few hundred years of scientific inquiry has resulted in great(and increasing)understanding of reality, with concrete, physical evidence thereof. You have said we cannot know anything and if you are speaking about religious beliefs you are correct, there is simply no way for you to know anything about reality based on that paradigm. But the very computer you are using to post shows that we can know a good bit about reality using reason and observation in a constant cycle of experimentation and correction that we call science.

Grumpy

[fewwillfindit]

Not all Christians are (predestinarian) Calvinists, you know...

I apologise, you are the first i have met. This is a moment for me, i will have to compose myself.

Pleased to meet you sir.

Do you live next door to a Presbyterian church, lol? In my experience, Calvinists are a distinct minority, especially among laymen. I'll bet that if you started a poll thread asking how many here are Calvinists, that at least 80% of Christians here would answer in the "no" (Arminianism) category.

[EduChris]

Scientific paradigms come and go. Last time I checked, science can't even tell us whether our little spot in the universe consists of three dimensions, or only two.

That's a straw-man argument. Not only is that model theoretical and wildly speculative, but it has no experimental backing...

I think the article says that the mathematics works out almost equally well either way, with 2-dimensions working out even better in a few areas. The article states that science may never be able to give us a definitive answer.

It is no strawman to state the obvious: science does not have all the answers. It never did, and it never will.

[LiamOS]

We give credibility to a consensus of experts, but who is an "expert" on subjective religious experience?

To a degree, psychologists are.

If we're not going to allow for the common human experience, then we're in for a whole host of problems.

If you consider the need for evidence other than popular opinion a problem, then I guess we are...

For Christians, God is an autonomous personal agent. God has decided to create other autonomous personal agents.

Indeed.

Autonomous personal agents interact with one another in something other than pre-determined fashion, and other than completely random fashion.

Why is this not observed? As I've pointed out, it's almost infinitely improbable that this would be the case.

We are talking about individual, discreet, persons here--and the Christian view has never considered God or humans to be entirely made up of physical matter.

That there is a component other than matter is not my problem. How that component interacts with matter is. Every single hypothesis I've heard on this connection instantly becomes absurd under examination.

If Christianity did have a tradition of viewing humans as strictly material beings, then you might have an argument (at least until the next scientific paradigm comes along) but given the situation, given the Christian view of personhood, I don't see where there is any contradiction.

The contradiction is in the mechanics of what you propose.

Nobody, ever, has proposed a viable manner for a 'soul' or similar entity to change our physical choices and form in a completely undetectable manner, and even if one posits what you have, there is no logical reason that we are not able to jump to the moon as we please.

I think the article says that the mathematics works out almost equally well either way, with 2-dimensions working out even better in a few areas. The article states that science may never be able to give us a definitive answer.

Science CAN tell us whether the universe has 2, 3, 11 or infinitely many dimensions. We just need to check.
Unsurprisingly, it's common belief that there are three, thanks to the wonder that is inductive reasoning. Of, inductive reasoning at a macroscopic scale can lead to grossly unwarranted conclusions(Causality, water is wet, etc.)
If we do in fact live in a universe with two spacial dimensions, we will be able to find out; the paper does in fact made predictions concerning the weak interaction if I'm not mistaken, and if this idea picks up some momentum, there'll likely be some experiments on that funded.

It is no strawman to state the obvious: science does not have all the answers. It never did, and it never will.

Why?

You are assuming:
-Science cannot possibly find answers to fundamental questions.
-There exist answers to those fundamental questions and that these fundamental questions are both applicable and coherent in the context of the universe.

Kindly give us your reason for assuming both of these.
Personally, I don't think that the second is a viable assumption, and without that belief, the first becomes somewhat inane anyway.

What science can do for us is demonstrate facts about the universe, and it is these facts that you are blatantly ignoring in positing free will in the manner suggested.

[EduChris]

Autonomous personal agents interact with one another in something other than pre-determined fashion, and other than completely random fashion.

Why is this not observed? As I've pointed out, it's almost infinitely improbable that this would be the case...

I don't know if it can be "observed" or not. It can be subjectively experienced, however.

That there is a component other than matter is not my problem. How that component interacts with matter is. Every single hypothesis I've heard on this connection instantly becomes absurd under examination...

Absence of evidence (or scientific theory) is not evidence of absence. As Polkinghorne says, "...an inability to form a totally articulated interpretation of all aspects of the realm of experience is never grounds for the...denial of the reality of that experience" (Science and the Trinity, p. 141).

...Nobody, ever, has proposed a viable manner for a 'soul' or similar entity to change our physical choices and form in a completely undetectable manner...

From Polkinghorne:

If God acts in the world through influencing the evolution of complex systems, he does not need to do so by the creative input of energy....The clockwork universe is dead. The future is not just the tautologous spelling-out of what was already present in the past. Physics shows an openness to new possibility at all levels, from the microscopic (where quantum theory is important) to the macroscopic (where it is not)....Both we and God exercise the holistic power to influence, respectively, our bodies and the world by means of causal joints hidden within the unpredictability of process (Science and Providence, pp. 40-41).

[LiamOS]

I don't know if it can be "observed" or not. It can be subjectively experienced, however.

You're just blatantly neglecting my point.

As an example:
I experience water as being wet. Does this mean that water is wet? What about a molecule of water, is it wet?

Absence of evidence (or scientific theory) is not evidence of absence. As Polkinghorne says, "...an inability to form a totally articulated interpretation of all aspects of the realm of experience is never grounds for the...denial of the reality of that experience" (Science and the Trinity, p. 141).

I'm not claiming that it does not exist, I'm claiming that the assumption that it does is ludicrous.

If God acts in the world through influencing the evolution of complex systems, he does not need to do so by the creative input of energy....The clockwork universe is dead. The future is not just the tautologous spelling-out of what was already present in the past. Physics shows an openness to new possibility at all levels, from the microscopic (where quantum theory is important) to the macroscopic (where it is not)....Both we and God exercise the holistic power to influence, respectively, our bodies and the world by means of causal joints hidden within the unpredictability of process (Science and Providence, pp. 40-41).

This seems rather vague to me, but if I'm interpreting him correctly, he is arguing that the indeterminacy at the quantum level is essentially what allows free will.
This isn't a tenable hypothesis, and I will explain why if it is in fact your defence.

[EduChris]

...This seems rather vague to me, but if I'm interpreting him correctly, he is arguing that the indeterminacy at the quantum level is essentially what allows free will...This isn't a tenable hypothesis, and I will explain why if it is in fact your defence.

He gets into chaos theory, complex processes, and quantum theory (and of course the books I referenced were written for non-specialists). You can explain your side if you want, but obviously since I'm not a scientist I have to take a fair amount on the basis of "appeal to authority."

If you were to read Polkinghorne (and/or other theists who happen to be scientists) and produce arguments against his views, that would be great--but still, from my perspective as a non-scientist, and without Polkinghorne here to cross-examine you, I'm still left with the task of deciding who seems more credible and authoritative.

[LiamOS]

Actually, I've come up with and subsequently put down most arguments I've seen for free will while trying to make a case for it myself.

Quantum Chaos was naturally one of the first attempts, but it fails miserably for this reason:
A decision can be made in a matter of seconds, and often those decisions rendering larger consequences(Running a red light, shooting a prostitute, etc.) are made in fractions of a second.
The probability of one's entire physical and neurological system being altered by the difference between the two(Moving one's foot, moving one's finger) in a matter of seconds is borderline zero. They're comparable with the odds of me swimming across the Atlantic in five minutes, running to the Superbowl and then winning it on my own.

Of course, those odds aren't zero, but the idea that this happens all the time would violate the probabilistic nature of quantum theory in the first place(And of course we couldn't even have postulated such a model to begin with) and if these events also occur probabilistically, then free will is still inane.


It's probably the best attempt I've heard of and conceived, but it still falls way short of the mark.