The capability to sin

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Willum
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The capability to sin

Post #1

Post by Willum »

Are there any other applications of freewill other then to sin?
Without freewill, we would be living God’s will.

Making freewill a very dubious gift indeed.

So, in God granting freewill, was there any other opportunity or benefit to it, other then the capability and eventuality of sin?

If you could choose to live in God’s will, without freewill, would you?

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #41

Post by Willum »

[Replying to bjs1 in post #21]

So apparently I’m going to have to repeat this and repeat this and repeat this.

But doing good is one thing, but it is not exclusive with singing. If there was one sin, it from Adam, it condemned humanity.

So what good was it?
I will never understand how someone who claims to know the ultimate truth, of God, believes they deserve respect, when they cannot distinguish it from a fairy-tale.

You know, science and logic are hard: Religion and fairy tales might be more your speed.

To continue to argue for the Hebrew invention of God is actually an insult to the very concept of a God. - Divine Insight

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #42

Post by William »

Willum wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:35 pm [Replying to William in post #22]

Or it violates site rules to comment on them succinctly.
What does one require in order for a succinct question asked? A word-salad answer?

No site rule have been violated - so no sin committed.

If you believe otherwise, site rules say "take it up with a moderator".

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #43

Post by Willum »

[Replying to Tcg in post #35]

Sorry, no one has suggested a reason why there would not be freewill.

Until a rational argument is presented against, then the observed holds.

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #44

Post by William »

Willum wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:41 pm [Replying to Tcg in post #35]

Sorry, no one has suggested a reason why there would not be freewill.

Until a rational argument is presented against, then the observed holds.
You are simply referring to the reality of Will and then prescribing that with some unsupported observation that the Will is "free".

What in the world is free? You say 'will' but offer what support for your observation?

Thus, your conclusion "free" will gives one "the capability to sin" has the unnecessary layer of a will needing to somehow be free, before one is enabled to sin.

What is "non-free will"?

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #45

Post by Eloi »

William wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:48 pm (...) What is "non-free will"?
Good question.

Actually, if there is not "free will", who did decide for me which shoes I am using now? ... or to post this comment on this forum right now?

Who is deciding for you?

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #46

Post by William »

Eloi wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:53 pm
William wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:48 pm (...) What is "non-free will"?
Good question.

Actually, if there is not "free will", who did decide for me which shoes I am using now? ... or to post this comment on this forum right now?
Deciding for oneself is exercising ones will so "non free will' is having no ability to exercise ones will...
The question was asked in relation to the apparently flawed idea that the word 'free' is somehow synonymous with the ability to exercise ones will.
Why the will requires the addition of being labelled as 'free' has not been established as necessary in the first place.

Perhaps the real question being asked in this round-about manner is;

Q: Is having a will actually a "gift"...even if it were claimed to be given freely. We already should understand that there is cost involved, which makes that idea somewhat suspect.
Who is deciding for you?
Most decisions made which effect me, are made without my will in those matters being involved.

Perhaps it is different for you?
Last edited by William on Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #47

Post by Miles »

Willum wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:41 pm [Replying to Tcg in post #35]

Sorry, no one has suggested a reason why there would not be freewill.
A suggested reason I wrote some years ago in another forum.


For many people the notion of free will is important because without it would mean each of us is nothing more than an automaton; a "machine" that performs a function according to a predetermined set of instructions, which is anathema to the notion personal freedom. If people lack freedom of choice how can they be blamed or praised for what they do? For Christians this has the added consequence of robbing the concept of sin/salvation of any meaning. So most people are loath to even entertain the idea of no free will. Free will is almost always regarded as a given, and often touted in some religions---Christianity comes to mind here.

Any exception to free will is often regarded as an interfering constraint. "I am free to to do this or that unless someone/thing comes along and prevents it. Of course this isn't what the issue of free will is about at all. Free will is about the idea that, aside from any external constraints, "I could have chosen to do differently if I wished." So I think another valid way way of looking at free will is just that: the ability to do differently if one wished. "I got a haircut yesterday, but I could just as well have chosen to have a hot dog instead."

Those who most disagree with this are hard determinists, people claiming that everything we do has a cause. And because everything we do is caused we could not have done differently---no, you could not have chosen to have a hot dog---therefore it's absurd to place blame or praise. A pretty drastic notion, and one rejected by almost everyone. So whatever else is said about the issue of free will ultimately it must come down to this very basic question: Are we free to do other than what we did or not? I say, No you were not. Free will is an illusion.


Here's how I see it.

There are only two ways actions can take place; completely at random, or caused. By "completely" at random I mean utterly randomly, not an action which, for some reason, we do not or cannot determine a cause. This excludes things such as the "random" roll of dice. Dice land as they do because of the laws of physics, and although we may not be able to identify and calculate how dice land it doesn't mean that the end result is not caused. This is the most common notion of "random" events: those we are unable to predict and appear to come about by pure chance. But the only place where true randomness, an absolutely uncaused event, has been suggested to occur is at the quantum level, which has no effect on superatomic events, those at which we operate.* And I don't think anyone would suggest that's how we operate anyway, completely or even partially randomly: what we do is for absolutely no reason whatsoever. So that leaves non-randomness as the operative agent of our actions and thoughts. We do this or that because. . . . And the "cause" in "because" is telling. It signals a deterministic operation at work. What we do is determined by something. Were it not, what we do would be absolutely random in nature: for absolutely no reason at all. But as all of us claim from time to time, we do have reasons for what we do. And these reasons are the causes that easily negate randomness.

So, because what we do obviously has a cause, could we have done differently? Not unless at least one of the causal events leading up to the Doing in question had been different. If I end up at home after going for a walk it would be impossible to end up at my neighbor's house if I took the exact same route. Of course I could take a different route and still wind up at home, but I would still be in the same position of not ending up at my neighbor's. To do that there would have had to be a different set of circumstances (causes) at work. But there weren't so I had no option but to wind up at home. The previous chain of cause/effects inexorably determined where I ended up. So to is it with what we do. We do what we do because all the relevant preceding cause/effect events inexorably led up to that very act and no other. We HAD to do what we did. There was no freedom to do any differently.


What does this all mean then? It means that we can never do anything differently than what we are caused to do. Our life is solely determined by previous causal events, including intervening outside events (also causes), and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because. . . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it was. We have no ability to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, free will does not exist, nor does choosing, selecting, opting, etc..

This means that blame and praise come out as pretty hollow concepts. As I mentioned, if you cannot do other than what you did why should you be blamed or praised for them? To do so is like blaming or praising a rock for where it lies. It had no "choice" in the matter.

Of course we can still claim to have free will if we define the term as simply being free of external constraints, but that's not really addressing free will, and why free will exists as an issue. The free will issue exists because people claim "I could have done differently if I had wished." Problem is, of course, they didn't wish differently because . . . . There is No Escaping Fate.



*Any proposition that the mind can be affected by random quantum events has to take into consideration the fact that "quantum states in the brain would decohere before they reached a spatial or temporal scale at which they could be useful for neural processing." This argument was elaborated on by MIT physicist, Max Tegmark. Based on his calculations, Tegmark concluded that quantum systems in the brain decohere quickly and cannot control brain function.
source


.
Last edited by Miles on Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #48

Post by bjs1 »

Willum wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:38 pm [Replying to bjs1 in post #21]

So apparently I’m going to have to repeat this and repeat this and repeat this.

But doing good is one thing, but it is not exclusive with singing. If there was one sin, it from Adam, it condemned humanity.

So what good was it?
You may repeat that endlessly; it doesn’t change the fact that an answer has been given you have not addressed it.

The “good” is the ability to do good. Without free will we can never do anything good.

Let me try one more way of explaining this. Without free will we are, morally speaking, like stones. A stone is neither good nor evil. A stone can be used to build a hospital and it can be used to bash a man’s head in. The stone is has done nothing right or wrong in either case. The person using the stone deserves all the credit or all the blame for how the stone was used.

Without free will we would be like that stone. We would not be able to do anything evil, but we would also not be able to do anything good. If you don’t care about doing what is good then that’s fine. However, if morality matters then free will is a necessity. The “good” of free will is our ability to do something good, even if it comes at cost of being able to do something evil.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-Charles Darwin

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #49

Post by William »

[Replying to bjs1 in post #48]

The problem with bringing morality into the argument is that it supposes that the will is related to notions of good and evil.
Those notions came after the fact of the will.

Indeed, it was the will which brought the notions of good and evil into the mix, whereas your argument appears to branch from the premise that it was the other way around.

That good and evil existed before the will did.

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Re: The capability to sin

Post #50

Post by bjs1 »

William wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:45 pm [Replying to bjs1 in post #48]

The problem with bringing morality into the argument is that it supposes that the will is related to notions of good and evil.
Those notions came after the fact of the will.

Indeed, it was the will which brought the notions of good and evil into the mix, whereas your argument appears to branch from the premise that it was the other way around.

That good and evil existed before the will did.
Actually, I would describe them as interdependent. Morality cannot exist without free will. Free will is meaningless without morality.

This is one of the reasons that Christians often talk about “moral freedom” instead of the more general “free will.” The language points more explicitly to the connection.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-Charles Darwin

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