How can we possibly have free will?

[Compassionist]

How can we possibly have free will? Without omnipotence, it is impossible to have free will. We, biological organisms, are all prisoners of causality. We are all doomed to be conceived without our consent, doomed to do the inevitable, doomed to suffer and doomed to die. If I were truly free, I would have already gone back in time and prevented all suffering and injustice by making everyone equally omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent and omniculpable. Please see: and and https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... p-in-brain Thank you.

[ttruscott]

Question: Does one make a choice on there belief in a god and afterlife? If so is that free will or obeying gods will?

IF GOD forces that belief, faith, in any way at all, then it is by HIS will. If HE does absolutely nothing to force our faith and allows absolutely nothing to force our faith and it arises strictly from our own self, our own desires and hopes for what we want, THEN it is our own faith by our free will.

Yes, and this is exactly the situation that obtains were there no God. The acceptance of free will's existence in no way points to the presence of an agreeable deity.

Except if you accept that human nature, dna, the coercive nature of cultural and family values and sinfulness etc make human free will impossible so the only time the necessity of free will could have been experienced is in the spirit world called Sheol, free of all human foibles, and only in existence by the will of GOD.

[ttruscott]

We are not free from natural law. Free will means moral free will, the ability to choose to do harm...or not.

And I contend that a free will is a will that is free from coercion or constraint to not be able to choose any of the pertinent and available options. The only decider of which option is chosen is the person himself due to his estimation of what is best for him.

[ttruscott]

"MY" God, THE God (if It exists at all), never interacts in the universe, precisely because doing so would demolish our free will. That non-interaction is obvious, and is why there are only two reasonable positions on the existence of God: agnostic-atheism and agnostic-deism.

And if you could go back in time and prevent suffering, you would demolish free will as well.

I agree but you miss one scenario in which HE can react with HIS creation without interfering with our free will.

The only problem is if someone chooses to rebel against HIS character and create evil. If they do, they immediately lose their free will to the enslaving / addictive power of evil, thus when HE judges them for the evil they have become, it is not against their free will but against their "evil self" will. That is, they get to stay evil in HIS sight as they chose but their false belief hell was not a real option because they thought HE was a false god does not save them from the necessity of being removed from this reality to the outer darkness.

Redemption and rebirth in HIS Spirit frees the sinful elect from their addiction to evil and they regain their free will.

At this point HE must remove this pernicious influence from HIS created reality so it does not (inevitably) contaminate the rest of society, that is, HE must bring the day of judgment. Once every person alive is perfectly righteous by their free will and has learned of the inevitable and horrible consequences of choosing against HIM then we will all make decisions within HIS righteousness as the best possible choice for us to make as we had hoped when we put our faith in HIM as our GOD and in HIS Son as our saviour from any and all sin. Because no one will ever choose against HIM again, HIS reacting with us need not be coercive in any way.

[Bust Nak]

And I contend that a free will is a will that is free from coercion or constraint to not be able to choose any of the pertinent and available options. The only decider of which option is chosen is the person himself due to his estimation of what is best for him.

Does "pertinent and available options" imply there has to be more than one? What if there is only one option available?

[ttruscott]

And I contend that a free will is a will that is free from coercion or constraint to not be able to choose any of the pertinent and available options. The only decider of which option is chosen is the person himself due to his estimation of what is best for him.

Does "pertinent and available options" imply there has to be more than one? What if there is only one option available?

Then there would be no choice and we do as we were created to do...

[ThePainefulTruth]

How can we possibly have free will? Without omnipotence, it is impossible to have free will. We, biological organisms, are all prisoners of causality. We are all doomed to be conceived without our consent, doomed to do the inevitable, doomed to suffer and doomed to die. If I were truly free, I would have already gone back in time and prevented all suffering and injustice by making everyone equally omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent and omniculpable. Please see: and and https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... p-in-brain Thank you.

We are not free from natural law. Free will means moral free will, the ability to choose to do harm...or not.

Question: Does your god ever interfer with man? Does he answer prays? If either of these are true then god is controlling and not your free will.



Your god punishes thoes that use will.

God (if It exists) not only does not but never has interacted. God cannot allow It's existence to be known since that would be an influence on our moral decisions.

[ThePainefulTruth]

We are not free from natural law. Free will means moral free will, the ability to choose to do harm...or not.

And I contend that a free will is a will that is free from coercion or constraint to not be able to choose any of the pertinent and available options. The only decider of which option is chosen is the person himself due to his estimation of what is best for him.

"...what is best for him", and whether that action would violate his rights or not.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 95 by ttruscott]

But would we still have free will? Given that we are still choosing to do this one available option, without coercion or constraint from any other options.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 95 by ttruscott]

But would we still have free will? Given that we are still choosing to do this one available option, without coercion or constraint from any other options.

I know this is your pet pov nurtured for years but I've answered enough that I'm sure you ask and I answer for new readers, not each other...

Just curtailing an option from our experience by GODly fiat is not 'not having an option', it is being forced to not be able to consider an option that is in fact pertinent to the choice, so, no, we would not have a free will.

'Accept me as your GOD' must have 'or reject me as your GOD' to be a real choice. Good as an ultimate is meaningless if there is no possibility that you can ever want to be bad. Single option, no choice format, controls the outcome very well but it does nothing to allow the person to express what they think is right, who they think they are and other issues of this nature. Everyone is bullied by their GOD forced lack of choice. In the case of GOD's purpose of having a loving marriage with HIS creation, it is impossible to achieve whether the people know they are being molded or are kept unaware...HE would always know.

Most people do not accept political parties that restrict choice and which would use brainwashing to keep everyone within the party line by not considering options so I wonder how a religion like this would be different except a bit more subtle and less conspicuously intrusive...

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 99 by ttruscott]

You could have just said, "yes, pertinent and available options does imply there has to be multiple options," when I prompted you.