About the idea of 'Free Will"...

[William]

In recent discussion with forum member 'The Tanager' and also in relation to the thread "Did Christ have free will?" where I answered that he did indeed have free will and forum member EBA argued that free will doesn't actually exist - which essentially I eventually had to agree with, given the definition of both 'free' and 'will'.

The end of our interaction went like this:

[Replying to post 131 by EBA]

Fair enough. May I ask why you think it is so important that Jesus possess free will?

No, because it does not matter, given you think free will does not exist...for anyone.

As I contemplated the discussion I began to understand that 'free will' is an incorrect description which adds confusion to any discussion about will.

It isn't that people do not have WILL, for they certainly do, but that given our circumstances, our WILL can never be FREE, because our circumstances - our situation in this physical universe in these physical instruments suppresses any true freedom that we might imagine we could experience and so freedom becomes relative.

One can, of course, argue for philosophical ideas to do with ones internal sense of freedom despite the external bondage and that may relate and align more to the idea of 'free will' but in relation to the will and the external reality, isn't it more appropriate to refer to the will, simply as the will without adding confusion to the mix by introducing the word 'free' in front of the word 'will'?

In relation to biblical referencing, is the concept 'free will' to be found within its pages, or is it only ever about the will? I ask this because it is often the case that 'free will' comes into the argument from Christians as if it were relevant and essential to truth, but are they taking liberties in arguing for something they call 'free will' when such does not actually exist, and why argue 'free will' if 'will' would suffice?

Is it because many arguments would fail, if only 'will' was used instead of 'free will'?

Thoughts?

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 9 by William]

The term "free" typically means free from determinism.

In other words, you say that we have many choices before us. But do we really? Are we truly "free" to chose between those apparent choices? Or is that freedom to chose just an illusion?

In other words, if your "will" isn't "free" from determinism, then do you have any "will" at all?

Removing the qualifier "free" hardly changes anything when speaking about "will".

In the Jesus example, if Jesus was not "free" do chose to do other than God's will, then Jesus could have no will of his own. And of course, if Jesus actually was God then the whole thing is nothing more than a scam played out by God himself.

So Jesus could have no "will" to do anything other than what the Biblical God had planned. And thus the entire religion falls like a house of cards.

You're right about one thing. Taking the qualifier "free" out of the equation changes nothing.

[William]

[Replying to post 11 by Divine Insight]

You're right about one thing. Taking the qualifier "free" out of the equation changes nothing.

Did I say that? Perhaps I did as I rushed things in replying to you. Can you supple the quote where you think I said that? Then perhaps we can see if that is actually the case or not, and clear up the misunderstanding.

In my mind what I was attempting to convey was the idea that the term 'free' was not necessary to add in relation to the term 'will'.

According to you it is very necessary in order to argue that Jesus had no 'free' will, but I wonder if you could argue he had no will of his own?

Which I believe the other thread was essentially asking, and that using the expression 'free will' allowed for the focus to fall, not on whether Jesus had a will of his own, but whether Jesus had "free will".

My answer to that, once it was shown that no one actually has "free will", was to agree then that Jesus also did not have "free will".

As I made clear in the OP, what this thread is essentially about is discussing whether the word 'free' is necessary when referring to human will. As far as I can tell, you have not given your opinion about that but have continued to keep your focus on whether Jesus had 'free will', which as I said, is not the focus of this thread and I only mentioned the other thread as a way of showing the path I took in deciding to create this thread, in the hope of discussing whether 'free' is necessary to use in relation to 'will', as I further explained to you in post #4

[ttruscott]

Well, as a general philosophical question we would need to define in some depth what we mean by "free". Free from what?

A free will is a decison making process that is free from coercion from someone else that forces the choice of a particular available option AND free from any constraint put in place to limit the ability to choose one of the available options.

If you must chose because of any other reason than the choice is what you want the most, then your will, your decision making process, is not free.

Making free will to be the same as the wrongly defined Godly power of being able to choose whatever the Deity wants to choose is foolishness. We cannot choose to fly not because we have no free will but because as sinful humans, flying is not an available option for us.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]

Well, as a general philosophical question we would need to define in some depth what we mean by "free". Free from what?

Clearly there are many things that humans cannot do due to physical restrictions. Therefore we have no "free will" when it comes to choosing to do those specific things.

Indeed, there is no absolute freedom to be had in the physical universe,

I'm curious what the physical restrictions might have been upon the angels who sang the glad tidings to the shepherds on the night of His birth?

[ttruscott]

"You have a choice" is the same as "You have the will to choose and the options to choose from."

If a hypnotist hypnotises you to always chose the red pill, when you are given the choice to choose the blue or the red pill, are you really choosing the red pill?

If your dna has given you a taste for seafood over red meat, are you really choosing it when you reject the red meat? Or if you grew up in a home that served only red meat and scorned those 'fish eaters', are you really choosing to reject seafood when you choose red meat instead?

If, when you were three years old your mother left you for a month with a babysitter while she must attend elsewhere and then in your young adult years your wife goes out with her sister and they are gone 2-3 times longer than they had thought they'd be and your anxiety grows until you decide to phone the police with a possible missing persons report, are you really deciding to do this or are you forced by your emotional history to act this way?

All decisions are indeed by our will but the word free sharply cuts between influences upon our decisons that can be resisted (if we want) and those influences that cannot be resisted and so force us to choose in a certain way. Whether we recognize we are under a compulsion or not has nothing to do with this.

A true free will is a will completely free from the influence of any coercive force whatsoever. A partly free will is one only partly coerced by influences in his life but not as fully as the secular definition of our will being absent and the illusion of choosing is only a product of the chemistry of our dna and the effects of our environment...iow, there is no ghost in the machine.

[William]

[Replying to post 15 by ttruscott]

A true free will is a will completely free from the influence of any coercive force whatsoever.

Cutting to the chase, we can establish without hesitation that our position in this universe can be described as one which does indeed force us in a coercive manner, as nature itself dictates the terms and conditions.

The idea of 'free' will comes about through the conscious ability we have to think of possible alternatives IF we were not captured by the natural terms and conditions of the universe.

As in 'what if' as in 'wishful thinking'.

We cannot choose to fly not because we have no free will but because as sinful humans, flying is not an available option for us.

And yet, we do fly. Does this mean we are not 'sinful humans', re your example?

No, it does not.

It can also be argued that OOBE is the experience of flying, and I for one have had such experience, and while initially it was not a matter of any choice which I can consciously recall, in one such instance it certainly was purposeful - I did so with the intent to do so.

One can of course then argue that the experience was not physical so should not count, which I can agree with, but at the same time I cannot deny the reality of the experience and thus assume that a non physical experience still counts as an experience.

Apart from that I do not get the connect between being able to fly and 'sinners' which cannot.

What has flying got to do with anything?

What is 'true free will' and why is it a necessary attribute? That is the question.

'Will' should suffice.

[ttruscott]

And yet, we do fly. Does this mean we are not 'sinful humans', re your example?

I did not bring up flying, someone else did as proof of no free will.

And no we do not fly. We make airplanes that fly and hitch rides within them. <sigh>

[ttruscott]

The idea of 'free' will comes about through the conscious ability we have to think of possible alternatives IF we were not captured by the natural terms and conditions of the universe.

As in 'what if' as in 'wishful thinking'.

Your wishful thinking is my reality... If you throw a stone at me with 'wishful thinker' written on it, should I erase that and write 'blinded by sin' and throw it back at you?

[William]

[Replying to post 17 by ttruscott]

I did not bring up flying, someone else did as proof of no free will.

I don't think so. It appears you brought up inability to fly and have tried to use this a proof of sin.

But anyway, this thread is about whether there is really such a thing as free will, or is the use of the word 'free', superfluous.

If you would address my arguments so far, that would be unusual, but a step in the best direction.

[Wootah]

If you are asking what is the difference between 'will' and 'free will' then i am not sure there is any difference.

The free is probably for emphasis. But we are all skeptical of free things, so i wonder if the objections to free will are actually objections to the word free?