Does God have free will?

[Leox]

First of all, God is all-knowing. That means he knows everything including his own choices regardless of time.
If God has free will. He can choose to go against his knowledge of his own future actions. But then he is not all-knowing because he can't predict his own actions.
For example, God knew Adam will eat the fruit. But he decided to make Adam anyway. Thus God wasn't really punishing Adam out of God's own liking. But it was rather part of the script.

I guess this is a more philosophical problem but I want to know how it is handled in the setting of religion.

[JehovahsWitness]

I don't think God has free will

1. When you say free will, what do you mean?

.... I don't think he can choose to be evil.

2. What biblical support do you have for such a conclusion?





JW





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Does free will exist in scripture?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 08#p981308

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FREE WILL, SELECTIVE FOREKNOWLEDGE and ... RESPONSIBILITY

[Miles]

The OP does not appear to provide a definition of 'free will'.

My mistake it was in fact you MILES [and later William] that were kind enough to provide the dictionary definition of free will upon which I have based my posts.

Pretty well figured as much.

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[Purple Knight]

.... I don't think he can choose to be evil.

2. What biblical support do you have for such a conclusion?

I think we're evil because we're tempted. We have principles, but we violate them out of greed. We want that thing, so even though we know X is wrong, we do X to get that thing. What would tempt God? He can just poof up that thing even if he did want it, eliminating any reason to act out of greed, but he's probably above even wanting that thing to begin with.

1. When you say free will, what do you mean?

I don't have a definition, but I do have a description. It's about there being any sort of higher being within us that moves our bodies independently of our basic animal urges. It's about not being a meat robot. A moth is a meat robot, slamming into that light bulb again and again, its inability to do otherwise upsetting me greatly. Are we qualitatively different than the moth, or are we simply more complex meat robots?

It's also connected to the Maslow pyramid and if there's anything beyond the top: A pure decision not influenced by wants of any nature. Something decided upon by the pure self, the true self, that is beyond every basic animal desire.



Let's start with a girl who wants to be anorexic, but isn't. She wants to weigh 45lbs and swing her hipbones around so she can get any guy she wants. But she will always go to food, because that is the stronger urge.

Let's say I have a magic wand. This girl says, please, help me, get rid of my desire to eat so I can be beyond runway model skinny and beautiful. So I wave my magic wand and take her need to eat away. In most instances, the girl will take the chance to be happy now and never think for another moment about how her basic animal urges, and not her true self, move her body. In my viewing of free will most people will have moved away from its attainment at this point. Before, she had some concept of a true self beyond her animal urges and there's a question of whether that true self might have been created by having been thought about, even if it couldn't move the body.

But let's say the girl is a member of Debating Christianity Forum, and she's philosophical.

So I point out to her, you have climbed up the pyramid, but you are still being moved only by the basic animal urge to mate. You wanted a perfect body so males would mate with you. Now they will, so you're happy.

At this point, she realises she's still a meat robot, but I (apparently) fixed this once before so just because she wants to be something more, she asks me to wave my magic wand again and take away her desire to mate. I do so, and she stops wanting to mate. She never had much of a desire for accomplishment, so now she pursues beauty. She becomes an artist, painting beautiful things, and a great appreciator of art. She now loves going to museums and viewing art. She discovers her curiosity. What does this painting mean? What is this about? She is now at the top level of the pyramid and only eats so she won't die because death would stop her from pursuing beauty and understanding.

The girl is happy for a while but a decade later, she is back, asking after my magic wand one last time. She wants to know: Why does she seek beauty? What even is beauty? Is there a basic animal reason our minds are curious? Monkeys are curious too, after all, and cats, so perhaps they have this spark of the divine.

Don't go there, I warn her, knowing what she is about to ask.

I must, she insists. Take my last desires away. Take my curiosity and my desire to pursue the beautiful, for perhaps I just go toward what is beautiful and away from what is ugly for the same reason, long ago, that I went toward food.

So I wave my magic wand one last time. Does she collapse, no longer having any motivation to do anything? Was she a meat robot, robbed of her last directive, so now she lies there not even breathing, because she has no reason to even breathe? Or was her true self freed from its prison of animal urges, able to choose even what it wants?

Now perhaps this magic happened at the second stage, when I took away her desire to mate and she decided she loved one of the males anyway. There are things that seem like they might meet this criterion, and love is one of them, but it would need to have nothing whatsoever to do with mating, reproduction, and it can't be a mere misfire of those desires either, as some people suspect the love for cats is, because their cries imitate the cries of our infants.

I admit I don't have proof free will doesn't exist, I just haven't seen it in action. Even selflessness seems to be an animal urge, a mere adaptation that monkeys also possess because they are social. If you ask me, the girl collapses, because I took her last animal urges away and nothing is left to move her. But I could be wrong. I don't know.

You may say, Purple Knight, you've set an incredibly high bar for free will. And yes, I have: For us not to be meat robots simply moving toward what we want most, just like the moth.

[JehovahsWitness]

.... I don't think he can choose to be evil.

2. What biblical support do you have for such a conclusion?

I think ... {snip }

Perhaps I wasn't being clear, when I asked for "biblical support" I meant bible references as in scriptures from the bible canon.

Thanks


JW

[JehovahsWitness]

1. When you say free will, what do you mean?

I don't have a definition, but I do have a description. It's about there being any sort of higher being within us that moves our bodies independently of our basic animal urges. ...: A pure decision not influenced by wants of any nature. Something decided upon by the pure self, the true self, that is beyond every basic animal desire.

Hmm... a "decision not influenced by wants ..." seems to me that evidence or the existence of your "free will" is still rooted in intellectual choice since that is what "a decision" is. A decision independent of anyones desire is still a decision. In any case that is far from the biblical view of "free will" which is more in line with what MILES and WILLIAM presented.

If you are claiming the above is a biblical view, feel free to provide scriptural support to prove it. If this is just your persoanl dogma... enjoy!

[William]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #49]

As I originally said, most posters launch into a detailed analysis of free will without defining their terms which is, in my opinion, a very basic requirement of debate.

This is why I created the thread "Identifying Free Will"

Without a clear definition which is agreed on, there is no way one can debate successfully. It happens a lot - folk end up debating definitions and go off track from the OP.

This has happened in this thread. The OPQ asks if 'God" has "free will" and a greater proportion of the posts are arguing about whether humans have free will..

[Purple Knight]

.... I don't think he can choose to be evil.

2. What biblical support do you have for such a conclusion?

I think ... {snip }

Perhaps I wasn't being clear, when I asked for "biblical support" I meant bible references as in scriptures from the bible canon.

Well, do you disagree about temptation? I could certainly find verses that indicate God is good, or that giving in to temptation is wrong. You're the one who told me that the apple gave people the right to choose their own way. If so, I find no evil but having chosen principles and then violating them, for which there could be no reason but temptation/greed. Why I said "I think" is that I'm not positive that this line I'm drawing between temptation, principle violation, and evil is absolutely correct.

You still haven't answered if God has the capacity for evil or not.

If you are claiming the above is a biblical view, feel free to provide scriptural support to prove it. If this is just your personal dogma... enjoy!

It may be confusing, but my responses to the point have been about Biblical free will, which canonically exists in people, allowing them to choose, most significantly, between right and wrong. I'm simply positing that because God is good, and perfect, he can't choose wrong. Anything in his being that allowed him to choose wrong would make him imperfect... like us.

You also asked me what I thought free will actually was, which I have good reason to believe is at least similar to what most people (including the OP) believe, because he mentions whether or not there's a script. I know that Lutherans believe there is one and that there is free will nonetheless. However, I would wager that most people think free will is about the lack of a script. In other words, if God already knows what I did, before I do it, then I never really had a choice.

What I believe free will is, is something that moves us, or even could potentially move us, other than our basic animal urges; our wants and needs. I also think you can have freedom of will (potentially) without freedom of action. If you were trapped in that moth body and didn't want to slam into the light bulb over and over, but couldn't stop yourself, that might be an example of free will, if what you wanted to do was independent of any basic animal urges.

Pretty well figured as much.

You say that as if you're right, but by your definition, God has free will, and so do all of us, because we make apparent choices and nobody stops us. The dictionary is a poor source for philosophy.

[JehovahsWitness]

.... I don't think he can choose to be evil.

2. What biblical support do you have for such a conclusion?

I could certainly find verses that indicate God is good, or that giving in to temptation is wrong.

And how would that prove your point? I dont see how such verses support the idea that God could not (lacks the intellectual capacity/ability/power) to choose to do evil should that be his desire.


JW

[Purple Knight]

And how would that prove your point? I don't see how such verses support the idea that God could choose to do evil should that be his desire.

I think God can't choose to be or do evil, because then he wouldn't be good, and the Bible would be wrong. If the Bible must be correct, then if you're looking for an outside force restraining God from choosing, look to the Bible.

I know you'll say this is a contradiction in terms, but the outside force restraining someone from acting can indeed, ultimately, be himself. If I know I'll transform into a werewolf, for example, I can chain myself to a radiator or lock myself in the basement. Now I struggle and try to get out but I cannot. I am restrained from acting. Who restrained me? Myself.

In the same way, God's perfection and goodness are locked in, must be locked in if the Bible is to be assumed to be correct, howsoever this happened. God choosing to be evil is impossible. It can't happen. He can't have the Pepsi.

[JehovahsWitness]

And how would that prove your point? I don't see how such verses support the idea that God could choose to do evil should that be his desire.

I think God can't choose to be or do evil, because then he wouldn't be good, and the Bible would be wrong.

The consequences of a given choice do not negate free will. If everything changes as a result of a particular choice, that doesnt mean the person is incapable of making a choice. If "free will" is the intellectual capacity to understand two or more courses of action, one doesnt stop understanding because one choice changes everything.

God can either think for himself (which is biblically what free will is) or he cannot. The bible indicates there is NOTHING God is incapable of understanding so scripturally he has free will.

Prove the above wrong with scripture if you can.




JW