Why 'Free Will' is Logically Impossible

[Rational Atheist]

Here is a simple, yet powerful, argument against the idea that we 'freely' choose our actions.

1. Our thoughts determine our choices.

2. We do not freely choose our thoughts.

3. Therefore, our choices cannot be free.

I don't think anyone would object to premise 1, especially those who believe in free will, since by definition, a "free" choice, if it could exist, requires a person to consciously make it, which by definition involves thought. Premise 2 may be controversial to some, but with a simple thought experiment, it can be proven to be true. If a person could freely choose their thoughts, then they would have to be able to consciously choose what they were going to think before actually thinking it. In other words, there would have to be a time before a person thinks a thought that that thought was consciously chosen by a person, which literally entails the necessity of being able to think a thought before one thinks it. This, of course, is a logical contradiction. Ergo, free will does not exist.

[AquinasForGod]

God is a perfect . . . .

Fine, just show your proof or evidence, because I say he is not perfect and here is my evidence, a straightforward syllogism. But first, a definition.

mistake
noun: mistake; plural noun: mistakes
an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.

My syllogism

Feeling repentant, regretful, or sorry for what one does indicates a mistake (see definition above) was made
[One does not repent, regret, or feel sorry for having done the right thing---not making a mistake.]

God felt repentant, regretful, and sorry for what he did
_______________________________________________________

∴ God made a mistake

So what is my evidence that god felt repentant, regretful, and sorry ? How about:

1 Samuel 15:35 (KJ21)
And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul; and the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel.

Jeremiah 42:10 (NCB) (god speaking)
“ ‘If you resolve to remain in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I deeply regret the disaster that I have inflicted upon you.

Genesis 6:6 (ICB)
The Lord was sorry he had made human beings on the earth. His heart was filled with pain.

Now, do perfect beings make mistakes? Of course not, ergo, god, having made mistakes, does not qualify as being perfect. God is, in fact, imperfect.

God could have willed there be no world at all, but that would be contrary to the good, for existence is better than nonexistence, for nonexistence is nothing at all, so it could not be something like good. I don't know if I would say God has freewill, but God has a will.

Nice I guess, but wholly irrelevant.

.

That is not how Classical Theists like Catholics read the bible. It is not how Rambam, (famous Jewish Rabbi) understood the Torah.

And why don't they? Because it gets them in a whole lot of trouble having to justify their claims that god is X, Y, and Z when the Bible unquestionably shows he is not.

These stories anthropomorphize God.

Perhaps, but no more so than the hundreds of other incidents where god has inserted himself into our reality.

I have stated before why God is perfect.

Sorry, but I don't recall you addressing any "why" at all, just making claim after claim that he is perfect and then defining what perfect is. Exactly like you've done below.

Perfect: having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

That which is eternal, if it has room to be better than it is, it would already do so, thus an eternal being must be perfect. It is why we hold that God is immutable.

I base it on philosophical grounding, but there is this verse

"Be you perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

Which is just another Bible contradiction to deal with. Cherry pick all you like, but the fact remains there are Bible verses that illustrate why god is not perfect,



He did things that were so wrong (big mistakes) he felt repentant, regretful, and sorry for doing them.

Jeremiah 42:10
GNV
If ye will dwell in this land, then I will build you, and not destroy you, and I will plant you, and not root you out: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you.

ISV
‘If you will just remain in this land, I’ll build you up and not pull you down. I’ll plant you and not uproot you, for I’m sorry about the disaster I’ve brought on you.

NCB
“ ‘If you resolve to remain in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I deeply regret the disaster that I have inflicted upon you.

Sound like God made a good and perfect decision to overthrow the Israelites? So good and perfect that he repented, regretted, and was sorry for doing it? Of course not. He blew it. God made a mistake. He is not perfect no matter how many times you claim he is. The evidence speaks for itself.

.

These verses are just anthropomorphisms of God. In other words, God did not repent.

As per my very clear reason as to why that which is eternal must be perfect, you have offered no rebuttal or shown any error.

[Miles]

God is a perfect . . . .

Fine, just show your proof or evidence, because I say he is not perfect and here is my evidence, a straightforward syllogism. But first, a definition.

mistake
noun: mistake; plural noun: mistakes
an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.

My syllogism

Feeling repentant, regretful, or sorry for what one does indicates a mistake (see definition above) was made
[One does not repent, regret, or feel sorry for having done the right thing---not making a mistake.]

God felt repentant, regretful, and sorry for what he did
_______________________________________________________

∴ God made a mistake

So what is my evidence that god felt repentant, regretful, and sorry ? How about:

1 Samuel 15:35 (KJ21)
And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul; and the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over Israel.

Jeremiah 42:10 (NCB) (god speaking)
“ ‘If you resolve to remain in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I deeply regret the disaster that I have inflicted upon you.

Genesis 6:6 (ICB)
The Lord was sorry he had made human beings on the earth. His heart was filled with pain.

Now, do perfect beings make mistakes? Of course not, ergo, god, having made mistakes, does not qualify as being perfect. God is, in fact, imperfect.

God could have willed there be no world at all, but that would be contrary to the good, for existence is better than nonexistence, for nonexistence is nothing at all, so it could not be something like good. I don't know if I would say God has freewill, but God has a will.

Nice I guess, but wholly irrelevant.

.

That is not how Classical Theists like Catholics read the bible. It is not how Rambam, (famous Jewish Rabbi) understood the Torah.

And why don't they? Because it gets them in a whole lot of trouble having to justify their claims that god is X, Y, and Z when the Bible unquestionably shows he is not.

These stories anthropomorphize God.

Perhaps, but no more so than the hundreds of other incidents where god has inserted himself into our reality.

I have stated before why God is perfect.

Sorry, but I don't recall you addressing any "why" at all, just making claim after claim that he is perfect and then defining what perfect is. Exactly like you've done below.

Perfect: having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

That which is eternal, if it has room to be better than it is, it would already do so, thus an eternal being must be perfect. It is why we hold that God is immutable.

I base it on philosophical grounding, but there is this verse

"Be you perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

Which is just another Bible contradiction to deal with. Cherry pick all you like, but the fact remains there are Bible verses that illustrate why god is not perfect,



He did things that were so wrong (big mistakes) he felt repentant, regretful, and sorry for doing them.

Jeremiah 42:10
GNV
If ye will dwell in this land, then I will build you, and not destroy you, and I will plant you, and not root you out: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you.

ISV
‘If you will just remain in this land, I’ll build you up and not pull you down. I’ll plant you and not uproot you, for I’m sorry about the disaster I’ve brought on you.

NCB
“ ‘If you resolve to remain in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you. For I deeply regret the disaster that I have inflicted upon you.

Sound like God made a good and perfect decision to overthrow the Israelites? So good and perfect that he repented, regretted, and was sorry for doing it? Of course not. He blew it. God made a mistake. He is not perfect no matter how many times you claim he is. The evidence speaks for itself.

.

These verses are just anthropomorphisms of God. In other words, God did not repent.

Ah. . . . I get it. The Bible is worthless, or is at least extremely misleading when it cites anything god said or did. God never gave his people any Ten Commandments or created the Flood. Genesis is just so much hot air, and in the persona as the Holy Ghost/Spirit he never sired Jesus. Got it. WHY? Because "the relevant verses are just anthropomorphisms of God." Which is a no-no because . . . . . . . . . well . . . just because, I guess.

As per my very clear reason as to why that which is eternal must be perfect, you have offered no rebuttal or shown any error.

You mean your little pronouncement:

"Eternal beings will be perfect because if they had any room for improvement they would always achieve it."

which I showed was no more sound than my counter pronouncement (slightly edited):

" Eternal beings will be imperfect because if they had any room for improvement they would never achieve it."

Of course you still have a burden of proof to show why god is eternal. I await your evidence. Although, to note as an FYI, all the verses I came across concerning god's eternal nature were just anthropomorphisms of him.

In any case I await your proof.


.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to Miles in post #232]

Ah. . . . I get it. The Bible is worthless, or is at least extremely misleading when it cites anything god said or did. God never gave his people any Ten Commandments or created the Flood. Genesis is just so much hot air, and in the persona as the Holy Ghost/Spirit he never sired Jesus. Got it. WHY? Because "the relevant verses are just anthropomorphisms of God." Which is a no-no because . . . . . . . . . well . . . just because, I guess.

You can believe that is the case, but obviously, Catholics do not agree. Because a story anthropomorphizes God doesn't mean it is all fake. The bible is not worthless when you understand it as it is intended, which the church has preserved from the early church fathers.

If you ever wish to come against the church by using the bible, you will have to learn how they have always understood it. It would be like me misquoting Einstein to try to show he points to God or new ageism. You then correct me, showing me that is not how physicists understand it, and instead of me going, oh, I see, I go, well I will keep using my own understanding.

You mean your little pronouncement:

"Eternal beings will be perfect because if they had any room for improvement they would always achieve it."


which I showed was no more sound than my counter pronouncement (slightly edited):


" Eternal beings will be imperfect because if they had any room for improvement they would never achieve it."

In order for yours to follow, you would have to believe the eternal thing is not intelligent or powerful, etc, such as if it were possible for a rock to be eternal, it wouldn't be able to improve itself in anyway, thus it would remain unchanged and could never reach any perfections.

But if we are talking about say an eternal person, one who is intelligent and can express power, then he will grow to become more and more intelligent. Because he is eternal, there would be no limits to his growing in intelligence and giving infinite time, he would learn all that could be learned, he would express his intelligence to perfect to completion. We can never do this because no matter how long we live, we will always have a finite age.
Only he who has no beginning or ending could have infinites. Everything else can only tend to infinite.

I do not suspect to hear an actual rebuttal to this. This is well established by philosophers.

Of course you still have a burden of proof to show why god is eternal. I await your evidence. Although, to note as an FYI, all the verses I came across concerning god's eternal nature were just anthropomorphisms of him.

In any case I await your proof.

Yeah, no problem. The God I speak of is the Classical Theist God. I will not be talking about other god ideas. Why is the God of Classical Theism (as apposed to say personal theism) eternal?

It starts from how we come to know the nature of God, via the argument from change. I first accept as a first principle that change is potential being actualized by something actual- from Aristotle's metaphysics, and Scholasticism.

Then the argument goes per se chains cannot be eternal, so the change we see in the world must terminate at that which is purely actual. I am not going to get into that argument here. It is enough that I accept it and thus must accept the logical consequences of it.

If God is purely actual, having no potential, as the argument shows, then God has no potential to grow or do anything new. Being purely actual, God would then be unchanging. The only thing that would be unchanging is that which is timeless.

But suppose that is not enough to conclude God is timeless/eternal.

I have the following argument which is too long to put here on why something eternal is more believable https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... ing-at-all

[William]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #233]

What is the difference between your idea of YHVH and the Deist idea of GOD?

Also - you did not comment on my post viewtopic.php?p=1095810#p1095810 - perhaps because subduing of the earth is another subject?
Although clearly, the task could not have been achieved through humanity, if humanity did not have the imperfection of free will...so it is relevant to the topic in that way...

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to William in post #234]

I will look at that post. I might have overlooked it, but to answer your question as to how my idea of God is different than Deism, well I am a Classical Theist. We believe God is although transcendent, he is also immanent in the world, even if only because he is our existence, literally. God is existence itself.

If God stopped being our existence, sustaining us from moment to moment we would stop existing. That is not deism, as they think God created and is not a participant. They do not accept God is existence itself. They do not accept that God's essence is existence.

In fact, I think only Classical Theism, specifically those that accept Scholasticism (like myself) believe that.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to William in post #229]

Design and purpose of the material universe. To make it into a machine, rather than the raw materials it currently is.

This would sufficiently answer my observation re your religious beliefs:

I am unsure what this means. Could you explain it in other words?

On the one hand it is claimed that humans are made in the image of YHVH, yet they are neither perfect and they have free will.

If they were perfect and had no free will, they would be useless to that end.

Yes, we could not be perfect anyway because we grow and are not eternal. The way in which we are in the image of God, as Aquinas teaches church doctrine in the Summa Theologica is that we are only in the image and likeness of God in mind only. So to be in the image and likeness of God means to be a rational being, not to be a perfect being like God.

Article 6 on this page of Summa - https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1093.htm#article6

I am wondering if I should even give the source for Aquinas as it seems no on cares either way. The reason I quote it is because it is an official understanding of Church doctrine. And his philosophy is the official philosophy of the church.

[William]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #236]

I am unsure what this means. Could you explain it in other words?

Re: Design and purpose of the material universe.
To make it into a machine, rather than the raw materials it currently is.

On the one hand it is claimed that humans are made in the image of YHVH, yet they are neither perfect and they have free will.

If they were perfect and had no free will, they would be useless to that end.

Yes, we could not be perfect anyway because we grow and are not eternal.

Which is to say - "YHVH cannot grow perfect things", and that this is neither here nor there. It is enough that the things created by YHVH, are useful to the purpose intended...and one could argue "perfect" re that.

Perfect in the same way that a digger is good enough for its intended function...

The way in which we are in the image of YHVH, as Aquinas teaches church doctrine in the Summa Theologica is that we are only in the image and likeness of YHVH in mind only.

Okay...Are you saying that Aquinas does not count the will [free or not] as "of the mind"?

I am wondering if I should even give the source for Aquinas as it seems no on cares either way.

It is expected practice to give any evidence a source where others can go to if they so choose.

The reason I quote it is because it is an official understanding of Church doctrine. And his philosophy is the official philosophy of the church.

Nothing unusual about that.
If, upon reading from the source material, I have further questions for you about the content, I will ask.

Old Testament scholars acknowledge that the Hebrew word for "image" in Genesis 1 (selem) often refers to an idol or physical image.[55][56] While the physicality of the image may be of prime importance, because Ancient Israelites did not separate between the physical and spiritual within the person, it is appropriate to think of selem as originally incorporating both physical and spiritual components.[57] Modern Christian commentators generally argue that the image of YHVH is not related to physical appearance. John Walton writes "The Hebrew word selem (“image”) is a representative in physical form, not a representation of the physical appearance."[58] {SOURCE}

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to William in post #237]

You asked if the will is of the mind. Yes. Will is of the rational mind. The rational mind is in the image and likeness of God.

[William]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #238]

You asked if the will is of the mind. Yes. Will is of the rational mind. The rational mind is in the image and likeness of God.

What about the free will?

Did the rest of my post answer your question?

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #238]

You asked if the will is of the mind. Yes. Will is of the rational mind. The rational mind is in the image and likeness of God.

What about the free will?

Did the rest of my post answer your question?

Just the rational mind.