This is from another Forum, but I’d be interested in your thoughts here.
The folks over at William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith were a little more responsive.
I’m still reading their responses, but here’s something I just posted.
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If God is good by nature, could He (indeterministically, for no reason) suddenly decide to be evil?
I’ve always been a compatibalist, and I confess I don’t really understand what those who say they believe in libertarian freewill really mean by the term (i.e. free to chose something for no reason, without any predisposition?), but I’ve seen convincing arguments against the concept, and the basic argument is the same one used for the existence of God–i.e. there has to be a cause for an effect.
If you choose chicken over steak, it’s either because you like chicken better than steak, or because you think it’s better for you.
But if you have two plates of chicken at perfectly equal distances from you, you are neither left handed or right handed, left brained or right brained, and there is absolutely no reason for you to choose one over the other (and no higher power to help you out before you starve to death), how could you ever make a choice?
If all things were truly equal, it would seem logical that you would starve to death, with your will caught between two equally good choices.
It’s been said (even by great Theologians like C.S. Lewis) that God can not do the logically impossible (like make a four sided circle, or create an object so heavy even He can’t lift it), so if it’s a logical incongruity to choose between two equally good alternatives, how could God make such arbitrary choices?
But some things in the universe do seem arbitrary, don’t they?
When I was a kid they said there were nine planets in the solar system, then they said eight, now they say there may be nine again (with a gas giant beyond Pluto), but what difference could it possibly make?
Wouldn’t the choice of eight, or nine, or seven, or ten be purely arbitrary?
And if there are things in the universe that are wholly arbitrary (determined not by God’s nature or purpose), wouldn’t He have to have libertarian freewill to choose between these equally desirable alternatives?
I’m just thinking out loud here, and I would appreciate other thoughts.
Thank you.
I’m sure most of you here are compatibilists, don’t you have any thoughts?
Do you all concede that a denial of libertarian freewill is a denial of God’s very existence?
Hi Michael,
I’m no philosopher, and I can’t say I fully understand what your query is getting at (sorry), so be patient with me. But I’m not sure what the problem is with arbitrariness in the universe (and its relation to free-will)?
So, God makes the universe - freely (as He had the power to not do so and there was no outside compulsion), but not arbitrarily as it was in perfect concert with an unchanging moral character of love. This naescent universe has self-unfolding and self-determining potential generated from the interplay of law-like boundaries, randomness and the creative participation of free-willed beings, and has a general (but not meticuously) determined end/goal.
I’m not seeing a conflict here … but it’s not something I considered much.
Hi pog.
That’s the compatibilist definition of freewill–free to act according to one’s will, given one’s nature and understanding, without external constraint or coercion (but not to make “indeterminate” choices.)
If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that libertarian freewill doesn’t exist, and even God’s will is determined by His nature (i.e. His unchanging moral character of love.)
Yes?
If there’s a cause for every effect that requires a cause, and if God is the only uncaused Cause, where would the randomness come from, and how would God introduce it?
How can He play dice with the universe when there’s no one and nothing except Him and His will to cause the dice to roll, or to stop them rolling at a particular point, and He must know how they will land?
Are you speaking of libertarian freewill here?
Are they free to make wholly indeterminate choices (undetermined by their natures, predisposition, knowledge, understanding, or desires)?
I don’t see where the randomness comes from, or what you mean by freewill in relation to God or creatures?
Do the “free-willed beings” who “creatively participate” in reaching this “general (but not meticuously) determined end/goal” have libertarian freewill?
Does God?
If God doesn’t, how could He choose to make the earth rotate on it’s axis in the direction it does (so that the sun, as viewed from earth rises in the east) instead of in the direction Venus does (so that the sun would rise in the west)?
Surely the choice of direction wasn’t determined by His nature (or His unchanging moral character of love), was it?
And if one direction is as good as another, how could God choose one unless He has libertarian freewill (and can make wholly arbitrary, undetermined choices)?
And if God has libertarian freewill, what about men and angels?
If they have freewill in the libertarian sense, wasn’t C.S. Lewis right in saying eternal torment is an unavoidable possibility?
Most universalists I’ve known (including myself) have denied libertarian freewill.
A.E. Knoch, for example, said that human will is wholly a product of environment, heredity, and circumstance, all of which are under God’s control, and God (as the master potter, molding the clay) is ultimately responsible for our choices.
If that’s not true, if every monster was a monster solely because he chose to be, how could monsters (like Satan, Judas, Hitler, and the Connecticut shooter, even if brought to regret their choices) ever forgive themselves?
Would they not eternally regret their choices?
So are some things in the Universe the way they are for no particular reason, and does this indicate that God has what’s been called libertarian freewill?
And if that kind of freewill exists, has God given it to men and angels?
It seems to me that these questions are highly relevant to the topic of Christian Universalism, and I’m interested in any comments any of you have.
Thank you.
I thought some of you might be interested in this (and I’m still interested in any comments any of you are willing or able to make)
Quote from: Satarack on Today at 08:19:03 AM
Yeah, that never made any sense to me either, because it can't escape what's known as the problem of randomness.
Namely, free will defined in this way is logically equivalent with random decision making. They take, "causal indeterminacy," to mean that at the moment of the decision, there was absolutely nothing that was determining the choice. In other words they interpret causal indeterminacy to mean the complete absence of any cause of the decision; but from this it logically follows that the agent themselves also did not cause their decision.
Which basically means that the decision is random, and the agent, if there actually is an agent present, was not responsible for the decision because he had no affect on what decision was made.
The mistake these people are making is taking causal indeterminacy to refer to the agent's choices, when really it's referring to the agent themselves. The agent is causally indetermined, but his choices are caused by the agent themself. Now, causal indeterminism of the agent, not the agent's choices, is free will. The agent is causally determining his choices for himself, but is not himself being causally determined by exterior forces and influences. This doesn't mean these forces and influences don't affect him, only that they are not sufficient to determine his choice.
When it comes to free will there are basically two mistakes on opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end agents are causally determined and are essentially biological robots programmed to make the choices they do by something exterior to them (the laws of physics, DNA, and evolution for example). On this end of the spectrum the robot has a will, but it's the will that was programmed into it so there is no freedom.
On the other end of the spectrum the agent's choices are completely uncaused, and the agent is essentially a random choice generator (like a random number generator). The random choice generator has freedom in it's choices because they aren't being determined; but the random choice generator is really again just another robot, only this robot wasn't programmed to have a specific will but instead programmed to act randomly. Again, they have no freedom; and there isn't a will of their own.
In the end, what I think the definition of libertarian free will mentioned in the OP boils down to is a confusion of the freedom of an agent's choices for the freedom of the agent. A causally determined agent that is causally determined to act randomly will have freedom in its choices, but is itself not a free agent and has no free will.
Thank you, but I’m still not sure I understand.
I really got to think about what you said here.
How do you define freewill?
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The agent is causally indetermined, but his choices are caused by the agent themself. Now, causal indeterminism of the agent, not the agent's choices, is free will. The agent is causally determining his choices for himself, but is not himself being causally determined by exterior forces and influences.
If good is better than evil (i.e. if the good is the proper object of the will, and evil but a privation, as Aquinas taught), why would any agent (causally determining his choices) will himself to be and do evil?
I’m not sure I can engage your points on the philosophical level your looking for, Micahel 
You may need to speak to some experts. I’ll try my best to address your points, but I’m way out of my depth …
Since I’m not 100% sure what libertarian freewill is I think that’s a bit of a leap! 
But your choice of the word ‘determined’ here is something that bothers me. I don’t see why acting in concert with your nature, as opposed to contrary to your nature, determines your choices. I see God as having a free choice about whether or not to create a good universe, *either choice would be in concert with his nature *- but creating a bad universe wouldn’t be, so I’d rule that option out of court. Perhaps ‘bounded’ might be a better term than ‘determined’?
I’m not really sure what it means to say that God is the only uncaused cause (too deep for me). Do you mean in terms of the actualisation of an event, or the first cause of a chain of reasons, or in terms of self-existence? For example, if I choose to pick up my cup of tea *I *am the cause of that event, there is no cause outside of my will that takes the chain farther back - my will is self-determining and capable of actualising possibilities. Yet my will is not self-existent, it depends upon many contingent things (the history of the universe up to this point) and the origin of these things can be traced back to God’s will as the first (and necessary) cause. God did x, which eventually led to situation y, where *I *as a self-determining agent chose to do z.
Randomness could have been introduced by God whenever/wherever He willed. Let’s say He created the universe with a set of physical laws and that some of these laws were indeterminate and probablisitc in nature. Like say, God made a spinning coin and made the laws of the universe such that there was nothing (outside the working of the system) that would determine the coin falling heads or tails but rather there was an irreducible and unchangeable probablility that it would land either heads or tails - a true 50/50 chance. Even with all the knowledge of all other contingent things one couldn’t accurately predict the outcome - it would always be either heads or tails. God doesn’t know; no one knows. Maybe quantum stuff works like that, maybe there is a true indeterministic element to reality. If so, then I don’t see why God couldn’t have caused the system or willed those probabilistic laws. To be really speculative, it might be that it’s through those probabilistic laws that God works His providential care without revealing his background tinkering (we can never know if it was chance or if God skewed the maths in that particular quantum event), or even that this system is how spirit interacts with matter or how freewill minds interact with material brains. No idea, but fun to consider! There’s a good chance I’m missing something here
Why does God have to will the dice to stop? Why does He have to know the outcome? Couldn’t God create a universe with (limited) self-actualising capability, and that where the dice lands will be a suprise?
I guess I’m saying that - I’m not really sure what I’m saying I have a very simple and unsophisitcated understanding of what a freewilled being is:
A freewilled being is someone whose character and life history are formed to a significant degree by their own free choices.
A free choice is an option chosen from a range of alternatives by a conscious and uncoerced act of personal will where the choice is explained by a set of rational justifications in line with their character, and should the tape of life be rewound and replayed enough times then the agent would at least once choose the alternative even given exactly the same initial conditions.
So, let’s say I can choose A or B. Either choice would be in concert with my character, either choice has reasonable justifications that incline me. I choose A. It is not arbitrary as I made the choice rationally and with good justifications. But rewind the universe and replay the scenario and I might choose B. Again, not because of randomness or arbitrariness, but because on another occassion I followed a different path of reasoning. A or B is not determined because the justifications are heavier on one side than the other, it is determined by my act of will in line with reasons - my will is irreducible and brute and free and rational.
No doubt there’s holes in such a view Does anyone really know how freewill works?
O.K, I’m lost here
Why does God *have to will *that at all? Couldn’t He just have set up a universe with an element of chance and let it play out, and, oh look, it turns out that by a mix of law + chance earth spins that way? And could He not also have given freewilled beings, like angels, the ability to change things in the universe - so that which way the earth spins is partly because of law, partly because of chance, and partly because of the actions of freewilled beings? Of course, God could also have just made it spin that way - and if its spinning a particular way might at any point in the history of all things have positively contributed towards God’s good end-plan then making sure it does so would be because of His nature of love. I have no idea if the earth spinning the way it does makes some future good more likely. I guess God does
Then I guess I disagree with Knoch. ‘Wholly’ and ‘all’ are big words! To blame God for everything seems unthinkable to me; God would become a weird monster and I’d become a pointless robot. Nah, I reject that, even if I can’t explain how the alternative is possible. I’m more than happy to admit I don’t know lots of stuff, but that I do know that I’m free and that God didn’t will evil and suffering.
It seems odd that you see forgiveness as only being possible if there is no creaturely freedom. Surely *it is the other way round! * For to have forgiveness one must have guilt; to have guilt one must first have moral accountability; to have moral accountability one must first have freewill. I cannot see why forgiveness for freely chosen bad acts cannot be attained as people grow ever closer towards God’s good character. And maybe one would always regret a bad choice in the past, but I don’t see how such knowledge/memory would be emotionally crippling if one also came to see how God redeemed and used that bad choice to further His good ends - how God turned your gratuitious evil to work for the alleviation of suffering, the development of good characters, and a final outcome of true and neverending good …
Thanks, but as you’ve probably noticed I’m not an expert and I think you’d do better with people who actually know what they’re on about!
I thank you (and I’m not sure where or who the experts are?)
Maybe, but isn’t love giving?
Isn’t that what love does?
Didn’t Jesus say it’s more blessed to give than to receive?
So if that’s God’s nature, and it was possible for Him to create a good universe (where He could give good things to contingent beings) would “not creating” such a universe really be in concert with His nature?
Creating a bad universe would be contrary to His nature, but wouldn’t creating nothing also be contrary to His nature?
I’m not sure what you mean here (and this goes to the question of what “libertarian freewill” means.)
Did you feel like a cup of tea because you were thirsty, because you were cold, because you like the taste, or because you find it relaxing.
Would you choose to pick up the cup of tea if you weren’t thirsty, were hot, disliked the taste of tea, and had a nervous reaction to caffeine?
I’m not sure what “indeterminate” or “probabilistic” mean here.
God creates the laws, He has an infinite mind, the laws He created act upon the coin He created (and set spinning), causing it to land heads up or tails up.
Can God not foresee how these laws would unfold, how they would act upon the coin, and whether it would land heads up or tails up?
When computer programers try to introduce randomness into a system, they do so in one of two ways.
They either write programs that create causal chains so long and complicated that the results are humanly unpredictable, or they tap into some variable in the outside world (like street noise, air temperature, or atomic decay.)
I don’t see how God would have any such options.
It would seem as logically impossible for Him to create a causal chain of events so complicated that He couldn’t foresee the individual outcomes as it would for Him to create a stone too heavy for Him to lift, and if He’s the ground of all being, there’s no higher reality or outside world to tap into, so I don’t see how this randomness could be introduced into the system–do you?
If God created time, He’s outside time, isn’t He?
How could He not see how the dice would land?
And this universe He created (with it’s laws and capabilities) would be derived from Him, and maintained by Him, wouldn’t it?
How could He not have a perfect understanding of how these laws and capabilities play out?
I still don’t see how this element of chance comes into the picture, unless it’s in the freewill of the angels, and that brings us back to the question of whether libertarian freewill exits.
A lot of universalists deny it’s existence, and my point was that since some things seem to be the way they are for no particular reason (i.e. without sufficient reason) it would seem that God must have libertarian freewill.
Unless the angels changed it’s direction, He must have willed the earth to rotate in the direction it does, for no other reason than that He willed it to rotate in the direction it does.
That’s libertarian freewill.
Neither am I.
It never made any sense to me, but as difficult as it is for me to understand, it looks like God (if there is a God) must have this kind of freewill to create the Universe we have.
**
So do universalists who deny the existence of libertarian freewill ultimately deny the existence of God?**
It seems like we’re coming at this from quite widely different angles, Michael. And judging by the number of threads you’ve started, this topic is one you’re seriously wrestling with. So again I apologise for not being much help.
I do believe that Thomas Talbott has a new book coming out on freewill - I’d certainly add that to my reading list. With regards the nature of randomness, especially in terms of quantum theory, I’d check out some stuff by John Polkinghorne and catch a few of the relevant lectures over at the Faraday Institute multimedia webpage. In terms of God’s knowing the future and His interactions with freewilled beings I’d check out Greg Boyd’s *God of the Possible *and Satan and the Problem of Evil, there’s also a good Youtube of Greg talking about open theism that’s worth a view.
No, I don’t think so (although one could argue that creating a good universe is perhaps a better expression of that nature).
Given that God is trinity and therefore is fully capable of expressing, giving, sharing and participating in love within and between Himself I do not see that God was required to create anything in order to fulfil the nature of love. Indeed, if creation was necessary to fulfil love then wouldn’t He have to create an infinite number of universes in order to best fulfil that aspect of His nature? Rather, it seems that creation was gratuitous in that nothing compelled God to act - it was a free choice motivated and in concert with love, but in no way necessary, compelled or determined by His nature. Consider: I love X; to hit X would be contrary to that love, but I could fulfil the nature of love by either giving X a cake or by taking X to a movie - neither is contrary to love and yet I have a free choice between the two. God could of fulfilled His nature of love by either creating a universe, or existing in perfect trinity or perhaps doing something else we can’t conceive of - but He chose to create.
Possibly What you seem to giving here are the justifications (that make the choice rational and not arbitrary) I’d have for picking up, or not, the tea - but I don’t see these reasons as compelling my choice. There is a middle element in the chain: motivations – deliberation – choice – action.
I agree this is awkward, but I don’t see in myself when I introspect a straight move from being thirsty to picking up the tea - there is something else in the way and that thing is me. The subject, the irreducible I, my will, finally has say-so. Sure, that say-so is limited and constrained and influenced by a thousand and one known and unknown factors but it is there and it does have an infuence upon my actions.
Even though I have x number of reasons to pick up the tea, I may also have x number of reasons not to pick up the tea. The thing that chooses to drink or not is my will - and if history is rewound I might pick differently.
Not if He chose not to. God is self-limiting. He has bound Himself to time (hence He does not, cannot alter the past) and bound Himself to His universe (He will not destroy it). He has bound Himself to freewilled beings (so He doesn’t wholesale remove their will or the consequences of their choices) and bound Himself to Jesus (He will not be un-incarnate) and to the church. I see no reason, therefore, why He cannot also limit and bind Himself to a self-unfolding universe with probabilistic laws rather than only determininstic laws.
I assume you’re right, I have no idea. But isn’t radioactive decay truely random? Aren’t things truely (according to some interpretations) random, indeterminate and probabilistic in the quantum world? Note, this isn’t just our ignorance - it’s not that we don’t know what determines the quantum events, or that they are simply unmeasurable, but rather that randomness and chaos are part of the true and deep sturcture of nature. I have no idea whether this is an accurate reflection of reality or not, and I have no idea if this chaos was originated in God or not, but I am perfectly happy to say that’s possibly true and that possibly God wanted it that way. Indeed, such a theory might have great explanatory power - both scientifically and theologically. Polkinghorne seems to think so.
Why?
If God could limit Himself to a Jewish carpenter could He not limit Himself in other ways too?
Complexity has nothing to do with it. It is to do with whether things like chance and possibilities are real, or are knowable. I’m an open thiest, I don’t see the future as a set of *facts *out there to be known - there is *literally nothing *there to know. The future is range of possibilites which become actualised in time. God doesn’t know the future in the same way as He doesn’t know how to make a four sided triangle - there isn’t any such knowledge.
Not necessarily. Indeed, what would outside time mean? That all His actions and thoughts occurred simultaneously? How would He think? How would He interact with time-bound creatures?
I see God as bound to time (by His own free choice, of course). He does not alter the past, He thinks and make choices in response to events, He can change His mind, He does not know the future etc etc. This seems far more like the God of the bible to me.
He does have perfect knowledge of how His own laws work. And He knows that they work probabilistically not deterministically. In the same way as He knows that I could choose x or y right now - He knows my limits, He knows what justifications and motivations I’m deliberating upon - but He doesn’t know, though He might predict very accurately based upon His great knowledge of my personality, which I will choose. After all, if He did know how people were going to choose in advance then all that stuff about testing (like Abraham) is pointless. And so is prayer!
If by libertarian freewill you mean simply that God could have chosen x or y and there was no way to predict the outcome, and it genuinely could have gone either way, then yes I agree with you. God, like me and you, has some degree of libertarian freewill (He might in other areas only have compatabilist freewill, or some other form of freedom that philosophers haven’t tagged yet - I don’t see that various forms of freedom cannot exist within the same person).
So, I guess I’m saying I believe in libertarian freewill.
Thank you pog.
I don’t see any reason to make the assumption that anything a computer programer could tap into in the outside world is truly random, if there’s a God (and God’s program is running outside.)
I don’t think there’s any evidence of that.
I think something C.S. Lewis said about that a long time ago is still valid today.
Why do you say “this isn’t just our ignorance - it’s not that we don’t know what determines the quantum events, or that they are simply unmeasurable”?
What has changed since Lewis wrote “Those who like myself have had a philosophical rather than a scientific education find it almost impossible to believe that the (new) scientists (in the field of quantum mechanics) really mean what they seem to be saying. I cannot help thinking they mean no more than that the movements of individual units (sub-atomic particles) are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless.”
(Miracles, page 20, parenthesis mine.)
St. Padre Pio might disagree with you (about God being unable or unwilling to change the past.)
Padre Pio was asked why he prayed for the happy death of his great-grandfather who had already passed away. He said, **“For the Lord, the past doesn’t exist; the future doesn’t exist. Everything is an eternal present. Those prayers had already been taken into account. And so I repeat that even now I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather.” **
facebook.com/AwestruckCommunity/posts/303664763077563
I have respect for Prof. Talbott, and I would be interested in reading that.
But having read a paper he wrote on “The Essential Role of Freewill in Universal Reconciliation” (and defended it here against those who seemed to deny any kind of freewill), I’d be very surprised if Prof. Talbott’s position is that libertarian freewill is true.
I think he’s more of a compatibilist (but I could be wrong.)
Thank you.
P.S. Please see last post under the topic heading “Can God Play Dice.”
I’d rather not, if that’s ok. I’m sorry, but it’s very difficult to divide my attention and time over multiple threads with interlocking subject matters. I’ve been in this position before and it gets somewhat silly copy-and-pasting the same responses between two or more threads If something relevant is said elsewhere and you wish to incorporate it into our chat here, could you either copy it or paraphrase it? Our discussion would go much more smoothly.
and:
and:
I’m not sure I follow you here. Do you think that nothing in the universe is random? That everything is basically Newtonian, clockwork and deterministic? Why?
As much as I respect C. S. Lewis I don’t consider him much of an authority of quantum physics, and it’s prefectly possible that he’s wrong here. Note: I’m not arguing that the universe does have a probabilistic indeterminate side, rather I’m simply arguing that it might have such a side. I have no philosophical issue with randomness - indeed, I’m quite inclined to it.
It seems that the ‘real’ uncertainty interpretation of quantum physics is a majority view at the moment. Even a quick glance at wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreta … _mechanics shows the wide range of differing interpretations of quantum theory, including the possibility that the universe *really is *indeterminate at the quantum level. I think the jury’s still out on this one - and I see no reason to decide the matter ahead of time.
Chad Orzel, Associate Professor Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College, NY, writes “Uncertainty is not a statement about the limits of measurement, it’s a statement about the limits of reality. Asking for the precise position and momentum of a particle doesn’t even make sense, because those quantities do not exist. This fundamental uncertainty is a consequence of the dual nature of quantum particles … If we’re going to describe quantum particles mathematically … we need to find some way … the only way is to have both the position and the momentum of the quantum particles to be uncertain” (How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog).
Paul Davies, Professor of Mathematical Physics at Adelaide University, who writes frequently on science and religious matters, says “We inevitably enconter the paradox of reconciling being and becoming, the changing and the eternal. This could only be done by a compromise. The compromise is called ‘stochasticity.’ A stochastic system is, roughly speaking, one which is subject to unpredicatable and random fluctuations. In modern physics, stochasticity enters in a fundamental way in quantum mechanics … In modern physical theory, rationality is reflected in the existence of fixed mathematical laws, and creativity is reflected in the fact that these laws are fundamentally statistical in form. To use once more Einstein’s well-worn phrase, God plays dice with the universe” (The Mind of God).
John Polkinghorne, eminent physicist and noted theologian, writes “Modern science has come to recognize that the processes that can give rise to genuine novelty have to be at ‘the edge of chaos’ where order and disorder, chance and necessity, creatively interlace. Otherwise things are too rigid for anything really new to happen or too haphazard for novelty to be able to persist. The intrinsic unpredictabilities of quantum mechanics and chaos theory can be seen theologically as gifts of a Creator whose creation is both orderly and open this way” (Questions of Truth).
Nicholas Beale, social philosopher, says “We are much more inclined to believe that the indeterminacy of the fundamental physical laws reflect a deep fact about the nature of the universe: that God has created it with real freedom inherent in the deepest level of creation. This seems to be part of God’s answer to the seemingly insoluble problem of ‘How can an omnipotent Creator create a universe in which beings are free to choose to love him and each other?’” (Questions of Truth).
That’s enough quotes … You get the picture. C S Lewis’ view is a minority view, I think. Most scientists don’t see the universe as deteministic.
Yes, and I disagree with him. It seems obvious to me that God can’t/won’t alter the past. If he could then he already would have, wouldn’t he? If he truly was loving, then every time someone did something that went against his will or led to evil and suffering He would rewind, rinse and repeat - so the very existence of a past filled with suffering is evidence that he cannot change the past. Likewise time travel is impossible, if it wasn’t then someone from the future would have already travelled back to us and given us cookies. They haven’t. So it never happens! *Time’s arrow moves in only one direction *it seems.
I think you’re right in saying that Talbott is more compatabilist than libertarian, but I’m not really sure. And agan I’m swimming out of my comfort zone here: I’m not a scientist, nor theologian, nor philosopher. Just some dude on the interwebz - what I say really isn’t much of a reflection of the best thoughts of the best thinkers in christendom. And in case it wasn’t clear: I believe in freewill and a creative universe, I’m a Christian, I’m an open thiest, I’m a universalist.
So is chad Ozel a Theist or an Atheist?
That is relevant here because it’s oblivious that if such things are (to quote C.S. Lewis) “permanently incalculable to us,” and there’s no greater mind above us, then we’re (to quote Chad Orzel) not talking about about the limits of measurement, but about the limits of reality."
It gets down to what you mean by “the limits of reality”–if there’s no God, science is it.
I don’t see how Ozel’s statement holds true if you allow for the possibility that there’s a God actually moving these particles around (or creating, and changing the laws that move them around even as he and his colleagues try to predict their movements.)
Do you?
And once again, I don’t see what has changed since Lewis wrote (as a Christian Philosopher) that he found it almost impossible to believe that these scientists (in the emerging field of quantum mechanics) really meant what they seemed to be saying (which is precisely what Ozel and his colleagues are still saying.
As He said, “I cannot help thinking they mean no more (given the possibility of a supreme intelligence above man) than that the movements of individual units are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless.”
Miracles, page 20.
Those Lewis referred to as “the new scientists” back then were saying precisely what your source is saying today, and I don’t see how it’s any easier (if you believe in one uncaused cause, or one independent fact) to believe they really mean what they seem to be saying. (Like Lewis) I cannot help thinking they mean no more than that the movements of sub-atomic particles are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless.
Most scientists are not Theists.
Does Polkinghorne (as a Theist, not a scientist) explain where this randomness, chance, and chaos come from?
Is he suggesting that God created the Cosmos out of some primordial chaos (like Marduk was believed by the Babylonians to have created the earth)?
If God created all things, visible and invisible out of nothing but His own will (as the traditional Christian creeds seem to maintain), where does this haphazardness, randomness, and chaos come from (and how can anything be unpredictable to Him)?
Perhaps because I see know way to avoid that conclusion if there is an All Powerful, All Knowing Creator of Einstein’s block universe (of time and space.)
But I also have difficultly seeing how every little thing could have meaning or purpose, or how God could make totally random or arbitrary decisions.
So do I, but I still like to read that new book (and I thank you for recommending it to me.)
Getting back to an example you gave.
But if you really love X wouldn’t you give her what she would enjoy most (i.e. the cake or the movie.)
And if you couldn’t ask her, she wouldn’t tell you, or she didn’t know her self, has it occurred that the very limitations of your finite human nature give you an advantage here.
You live in linear time.
Your thoughts proceed in a sequence.
And (in the absence of some better reason) you can always do the first thing you thought of.
If you didn’t know if she’d rather have a cake or being taken to the movies, and you thought of the cake first, problem solved.
But if God is above time, if every option is visible to Him at one (i.e. if there’s no “first”), how would He make such a choice.
If you say God could flip a coin, wouldn’t He have to make the coin, create the space and air the coin would travel thru, create a surface for the coin to land on, and create and maintain the forces that would cause it to land tails up or face up?
In other words, wouldn’t He have to in effect make the choice before He flipped the coin?
I don’t see how you can say know, or how you can conceive of God introducing true randomness in to a universe entirely made and maintained by Him.
If you can, I wish you (or Professor Talbott) would explain it to me.
Thank you.
I don’t know. And I don’t see it as relevant, sorry. I quoted him to show that the majority interpretation of quantum physics leans towards true indetrminism in the universe - and this holds for both theistic quantum physicists and atheistic ones (as my quotes tried to demonstrate). By doing this I wanted to show that it is possible to believe that the universe does have randomness in it; that many highly intelligent and informed people accept this; that both Christians and non-Christians can hold this view (and Einstein was a determinist, but also an atheist). Note again, I have no idea whether it is true or not, but I accept that a number of key thinkers have no issue with it scientifically, philosophically or theologically.
Another quote, this time from Ian Barbour, eminent professor of physics and religion, “A minority of physicists, including Einstein and Planck, have maintained that the uncertainties of quantum mechanics are similarly attributable to our present ignorance. They believed that detailed subatomic mechnisms are rigidly causal and deterministic … Many physicist assert that uncertainty is not a product of temporary ignorance but a fundamental limitation permanently peventing exact knowledge … Heisenberg held that* indeterminacy is an objective feature of nature *and not a limitation of human knowledge … by far the majority of contemporary physicists agree in rejecting the determinism of Newtonian physics … In sum, Einstein’s classically realist, determinist, and local interpretation seems to be ruled out by the Aspect experiments” (Religion and Science) [italics mine].
The key disgreement between us seems to lie here. I believe that *if God so wished He could create a universe with randomness, originality, creative power, self-unfolding and true freedom in it. You seem to see that God and randomness are somehow incompatible. * Why? What is preventing God from self-limitation or from creating an open universe?
Why does God *have to *move them around? Why can’t He just create a system that has limited statistical chaos in it - and then, should He wish, intervene in that system when He wants to?
and:
I guess, but I do not know, that physics has developed quite a bit since Lewis and that some new experiments and maths have helped make certain interpretations of quantum nature more popular. How long ago did Lewis write that book - and how close was he to cutting-edge quantum physics? Eitherway, he seems to suggest that the scientists couldn’t really mean what they said - but this is quite wrong. They *really did mean *what they said - and time has shown this. They might be wrong (how would I know?), but it seems odd to not accept their own word for what they believe. Let them say what they want to say and if you think they or their interpretations are wrong then argue with that point and provide the evidence or justifications to back up the point - but don’t say that they mean something else other than what they say they mean simply because you cannot accept or understand it.
Off the top of my head I’m not sure. He may well do, but I don’t have it to hand, and I’ve read very little of his quite voluminous output! I suspect (but am prepared to be corrected) that he simply attributes this element of chaos to God’s own deisgn. On a side note, I think the Christian philosopher Keith Ward has some stuff to say about freedom and quantum physics - but again, I’m not well read enough to offer more.
Again, I fail to see the problem If God wanted randomness He made randomness! Or is God constrained by something? I see no reason why a limited degree of creative randomness or freedom cannot be compatible with love - indeed, it strikes me as true creative empowerment of the other would better fulfill love’s essence!
As to ‘How can anything be unpredicatble to Him?’ I simply point towards kenotic self-limitation and open theism and see no issue with that possibility.
But why do you have to conclude this?
I certainly don’t, and far more importantly neither do many Christian scientists, philosophers or theologians. What is your justification for seeing no other possible conclusion to God’s existence? And, as far as I understand, Einstein’s God was really just a shorthand for Nature - he was, I believe, an atheist.
I don’t think God makes random decisions - but I do think it’s perfectly possible He could have created a universe where truely random events outside His meticulous control take place.
Neither do I believe that ‘every little thing’ has meaning or purpose - many things are meaningless or purposeless (at least from God’s point of view) - and evil is a great example. God does not will evil - it does not have some grand purpose in His economy. Sure, freewilled beings introduce evil for their own reasons, but as far as God is concerned it is always gratuitous. And the direction which the earth spins may be likewise gratuitous or arbritary - not even God cares about it!
My anaology is very far from perfect, since I compared the creation of the universe to giving someone cake All I meant to show was that many actions could be in concert with love without being contrary to love. And that God had more than one option available to Him (with regards creation) that would be in concert with love.
Let me try another (no doubt flawed) analogy: As an artist I aim to create a beautiful picture. And I face a choice: do I paint the tree here or there? Both equally fulfill the aesthetic conditions, neither contravene the end beauty of the picture, so there is genuine uncoerced choice. But the choice is not arbitrary as I can provide good artistic reasons for placing it here, or there. Is this any better
I agree that your argument is strong, that it is dificult, and that I really cant give you the kind of clear answer you’re looking for. Remember, I’m just a nobody. But I still fail (my problem, I’m sure) to see why God cannot introduce randomness or self-limitation if He wants to. He creates a system where time runs only in one direction, where physical laws have bounded probable outcomes but not definite ones, where creatures have self-determining and self-actualising powers of free choice, and where the future is an undetermined realm of possibilities rather than a realm of predetermined events, and He removes the ability to change the past and limits His ability to interfere with free creatures and the consequences of their actions. Why is this impossible to God?
1.) I don’t believe there’s any evidence that Einstein was an atheist (I think he was more of a Panentheist, or maybe a Pantheist.)
2.) Science deals in math and experimentation, and scientists aren’t qualified to draw Philosophical inferences from their work.
Quantum Physicists shouldn’t be taken to mean what they seem to be saying (Philosophically), because they’re speaking Philosophical nonsense.
It’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of God creating a square circle, an object too heavy for Him to move, a being greater than He is, or particles that slip in and out of existence without His involvement.
**
And it’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of Him causing a causal series of events so complicated that He can’t follow it**.
3.) These modern scientists are standing on Einstein’s shoulders, building on his work.
So even in speaking of the science, and the math (which I don’t pretend to understand), it’s extremely arrogant of them to suggest that their work is complete, and there isn’t anything to discover that they haven’t discovered.
Not according to some of the quantum physicists you’re fond of quoting.
closertotruth.com/video-profile/Is-Time-Travel-Possible-Michio-Kaku-/385
Which brings me to something you said about Padre Pio.
No.
If anything valuable can be learned (or must be learned) from such things, God wouldn’t change everything.
And we wouldn’t know of anything He changed, because anything He changed would be the past, and it would already be past for anyone here in the present.
I’m not sure what you mean by this.
It isn’t probable, it’s certain (barring Divine intervention) that an object dropped from a plan within earth’s gravitational field will fall to earth.
If particles of light encounter a mirror, it’s certain (not probable) that a certain number of them will pass thru the mirror, and a certain number will go around the mirror–and though it may be humanly impossible to predict which particles will go thru, and which particles will go around, I don’t see how you or your sources have shown that God doesn’t determine that, so I don’t see what you mean by "where physical laws have bounded probable outcomes but not definite ones."
Now I think you’re saying that God has given creatures libertarian freewill, and if that’s true He would have it Himself, and He could decide which particles go thru and around the mirror anytime quantum physicists conduct their experiments without having any particular reason (and that would answer a lot of my questions–but I still have difficulty with the concept of libertarian freewill.)
If you add libertarian freewill to the equation, some future events would be undetermined by God, but I don’t believe they’d be unknown to Him.
The future might be an unbounded field of possibilities and probabilities for us, but I believe it would be known to Him (and if you believe that God has predicted the rise and fall of empires, and the freewill actions of individuals, it would seem it has to be.)
If that’s true, how could UR be more than a possibility, probability, or hope?
Let’s take a simple system like a table, some walnut shells, and a pea.
I could see God playing a shell game on some human scientists trying to measure the speed and location of sub-atomic particles, but I can’t see Him playing one on Himself, and I can’t see the system of table, shells, and pea doing things all on their own.
But it seems to me that one of the last two alternatives is exactly what you and the quantum physicists you quote are suggesting, and I think Lewis would (rightly) view that as Philosophical nonsense.
Where does this “chaos,” “randomness,” and “unpredictability” come from?
And how could God introduce it into the system of Nature (even if He wanted to)?
In other words, why did you never answer this question?
Those are the questions that neither you or your sources have answered (to the best of my observation.)
You are correct. I was wrong to label Einstein an atheist - especially since he hated being called one! According to his wiki page Einstein described himself as an agnostic. He thought that the personal God of theism was silly and the bible childish, and it seems that the God he didn’t know existed or not was more akin to the deity of Spinoza or Plato. Perhaps he is better classed as an anti-theist agnostic Platonist!
The reason I noted (incorrectly) his religious worldview was to draw attention to what seemed an inconsistency on your part: you seem to dismiss scientists’ opinions if they are not theists (ie Chad Orzel) yet favour Einstein’s determinism even though he was anti-theistic in the face of the opinion of scientists who are also Christian theists (like Polkinghorne). Something doesn’t seem to add up here.
That’s too harsh. Surely they can draw whatever inferences they want to. Doesn’t mean their opinions are correct, but they have as much right to draw inferences as everyone else. Or would you limit such inferences only to professional philosophers? But in that case why would they have a right to comment on science they knew nothing about? Or is comment to be restricted to only quantum physicists who are also philosophers of science and religion and who are also theologians? Where does that leave me? Where does that leave you?
The nonsense of a square-circle seems to be a different order of nonsense - self-contradictory on a semantic level. Having particles appear without God’s help is not so *prima facie *obviously self-contradictory. Besides, I was really talking about indeterminancy about particle behaviour, not really expanding it to cover fluctutions in the quantum vacuum - whatever that is all about!
I think it unfair to compare square-circles to modern quantum science, not least because almost everyone (I think some theologians are different) believe square-circles are silly, but almost noone (philosophers or scientists) that I’ve come across thinks quantum physics is nonsense. Other than C S Lewis, who else would you quote? Even if one disagrees I think it somewhat overdone to refer to their theories as ‘nonsense’.
David Wilkinson, scientist and theologian, writes “The philosophical questions remain unanswered but the success of quantum theory does have profound implications for our view of science … It reminds us of the limits of our imagination. To view the world as a rigid clockwork mechanism does not describe the world as it is. It reminds us to be very hesitant to say that something cannot possibly happen” (God, The Big Bang, and Stephen Hawking).
As I said before, complexity has got nothing to do with it. It’s not that something is too complex for God to understand (who has ever said that?). Rather, it’s that God has created a truely free system, has created truely free beings, and has limited Himself (by His own volition).
True, in part - all science is collaborative and cumulative. But although Einstein was part of the initial quantum revolution he soon was isolated and it was left to other geniuses to develop the field. Max Born wrote of Einstein, “He has seen more clearly than anyone before him the statistical background of the laws of physics, and he was a pioneer in the struggle of conquering the wilderness of quantum phenomena. Yet later, when out of his own work a synthesis of statistical and quantum principles emerged which seemed acceptable to almost all physicists he kept himself aloof and sceptical. Many of us regard this as a tragedy.”
Einstein was a great physicist, but he was not infallible, nor was he the last word on quantum mechanics.
Who says that? No one says that there isn’t more to be discovered or that all the work is complete. All acknowledge the possibility of being wrong, the need for more investigation, the ongoing nature of the scientific enterprise. I don’t know what you’re getting at here. The majority of physicists in the field accept an indeterminate strata to reality. How does this equate to arrogance?
Absolutely. Some scientists believe time travel is possible, some don’t. I’m not sure where the majority lean, or if there’s consensus. I don’t believe that it’s possible. More importantly I don’t believe God can or will or has altered the past, but I believe that on non-scientific grounds. Also, the reason I quote so much is that you asked for expert opinion on this issue - I’m giving you names and books to read
You’re right, of course. If God has/had changed the past then we could never know - it is something that is untestable, unknowable, unprovable.
But I still rejest it for ethical and theological reasons.
You say that if we had something valuable to learn from an event then God, whose nature is love, wouldn’t change it or remove it from history. But think what this implies. It means that every single event ever has occurred because God wanted it to and that He thought *it was for our benefit *and that no other posible outcome would have been better (or He would have kept rewinding until He got the one He wanted). In other words, this is the best of all possible worlds! And instantly we’re hit by Dr Pangloss and Ivan Karamazov. Consider the immense amount of animal pain over millions of years - what did that dying deer or extinct dinosaur learn from this gracious lesson? Consider the huge number of terminated foetuses and dead infants - what did they learn from all this? A God who uses such teaching methods is a monster.
And it gets worse. For changing the past doesn’t *actually solve anything *- for the pain still happened! I have a headache - I’m feeling it know. Even if God rewinds time and changes the past I will still have felt it now, even though no one will know. The pain I’m feeling now is real - even if the past changes it is still happening to me now. If God keeps rewinding when something goes against His will then all He is doing is multiplying the suffering! and also consider that although we will never know the alternative histories that have existed, God will. He will still have all the memory of all that hurt - He will forever know of suffering that to our mind never occurred. Poor God!
And consider what history-alteration does to our freewill. I can never be sure that my choices have any real consequences - God can always change it without me ever being able to know. How do I know that there’s even such thing as cause and effect? And why should I pray if everything is going to work out exactly as God wants it to anyway? So, when faced with suffering, one shouldn’t pray, one should simply thank God for His great lesson. And what does sucha view do with the bible: When Jesus prayed ‘If there be any other way’ well there was another way - why did God not do it? And when God regretted making man why cause a flood when He could have just pressed the rewind button?
Yes. But that’s Newtonian physics not quantum physics. I don’t think anyone’s been able to solve the micro- macro- scale problem of quantum stuff. But I’m no quantum physicist! Remember, all I’m arguing for here is the possibility that the scientists might have got it right - that’s all (I’m not wedded to quantum indeterminism - indeed it is very much an ongoing debate and Einstein might be proved right after all).
That is not what the scientists are themselves saying. It’s not that we simply cammot measure - it’s that it is always undetermined - it’s probabilistic. Do I understand this? No, I’m not a quantum physicist. And I certainly can’t be expected to either learn quantum physics or copy whole physics texts in order to give you a complete account of the phenomena! I suggest that you learn quantum mechanics if you want to argue this on a scientific level I have no idea. Maybe a science forum would be the best place to go for answers on this topic?
God could decide which particles do whatever - I guess He could decide to turn all the particles into pink hippos if He wanted to. But I reject the idea that libertarian freedom and God’s freedom mean He would make that choice without good reason, and I also reject that God *has to intervene *to choose which particles do what - His system is good enough to work on its own (this reminds me of design arguments).
But they could be unknwon to Him - open theism is a philosophically and biblically robust theory. and I prfer it for many reasons. Firstly, God’s foreknowledge would seem to undermine libertarian freedom. I can choose A or B. God knows which I will choose. Can I choose the other one and make God wrong? If not, then in what way am I really free to choose either?
Not if open theism is correct. Prophecy can be explained in different ways that are compatible with open theism (I suggest Greg Boyd’s God of the Possible) - I take a mixed approach that draws on notions of conditional prophecy and God’s control over events rather than His foreknowledge. Example: God declares that Babylon will smash the Jews. Is that a predetermined event, does God know the future and is simply recounting it - or is it (as I prefer) that God is going to make that happen (or that he’ll permit it to happen) if the Jews don’t repent. When Jonah went with God’s message of destruction to the Ninivites was that a future set in stone or did God change His mind when they repented?
There are multiple possible answrs to this. One is that God over-rides freewill at a certain point (I disagree). Another is that simply given enough time all beings will chose Him. I prefer the idea that fully rational beings when faced with the full knowledge of God’s love as manifest in Christ will be unable to not love God (note, there isn’t a choice for God - I don’t like that talk of a freechoice for God, belief is not a choice it’s a state of being), not because of coercion or loss of freedom, but rather with *full persuasion *(in the same way that when one understands that 2+2=4 one can never not believe it or act sincerely and rationally contrary to that knowledge - to know is to understand is to believe) - and persuasion and belief do not remove freedom (I am subject to many influences, beliefs, and am persuaded of many things but still consider myself a freewilled being). I refer to this as epistemic collapse - the veil between God and man is removed, the epistemic distance is collapsed and man believes and accepts God by being persuaded that God is good.
It is not philosophical nonsense! They might be wrong, but they (the scientists, philosophers and theologians) are not being nonsensical. I’m not sure that C S Lewis really was at the forefront of cutting edge quantum physics (or philosophy - he was an English specialist).
Keith Ward, respected Christian theologian and philosopher, writes “What is needed here is a clear distinction between intelligibility and determinism. A process can be wholly intelligible without being deterministic. In fact, it may be a condition of thehighest sort of intelligibility that processes are non-deterministic … Many philosophers … say that in order to be intelligible some processes actually rule out determinism … The theory of cosmic evolution encourages us to think of the story of the expanding universe as the development of new and richer forms of beauty and wisdom, strictly unpredictable from their antecedents, but always remaining within the basic parameters of fundamental physical constants … It is a logical entailment of finite free creativity that many states exist that God does not intend” (God, Faith and the New Millennium).
What, is anything impossible to God? If God wanted a chaotic system why could not have a chaotic system? If God wanted free creatures, if He wanted a free universe, if He wanted to limit His own interventions or capabilities or bind Himself to time - why couldn’t He?
I thought I had, sorry. Let’s just pretend that the mainstream scientific view is right (again, I’m not arging for it - I just think it’s a reasnoble possibility). God freely chooses to create a universe which has the capability to unfold without intervention, and where genuine randomness exists - that is to say on some quantum level the behaviour of some objects, like sub-atomic particles, is not strictly deterministic but rather probabilistic - ie there is a 50/50 chance it’ll be particle A or B but that no preceeding event affects that and it is therefore unknowable. God has created a universe that throws dice. Now, I’m not sure how that works - and my brain has evolved to only be able to cope with macro-level Newtonian stuff with simple cause and effect - but I don’t see why my imaginative and biological limits should prevent brighter people, and more especially God, understanding how this works in detail. What exactly is the problem here?
Wow - did you read all those books and listen to all those Faraday lectures already!
There’s some more lectures from the Faraday Institute with such great titles as: Brain, Mind and Free-Will: Did my neurons make me do it?; A Philosophical Perspective on Free Will; Theology and Physics; Science and Religion in the Writings of C. S. Lewis; Mind and Matter: The World as ‘Representation’ in Quantum Theory; Physics and Faith; Lemaitre, the Big Bang and the Quantum Universe; The Necessity of Chance: Randomness, Purpose and the Sovereignty of God; Does quantum mechanics have any relevance for religious belief?; Quantum Cosmology and Its Implications for Theology; Dialogue: Can God Know the Future? Reflections on the Block Universe; Quantum Theory, Critical Realism and Religious Belief … and loads more!
Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’ve wandered far from your OP! We’ve got side-tracked onto quantum randomness, but that seems somewhat tangential to the main point which seems to be freewill! I’m not sure that I care too much whether the universe has a non-deterministic level or not, so long as beings have freewill.
So, for the sake of argument, let’s say that the universe is strictly deterministic in the physical. Are we agreed that beings (like humans) have freewill? If so, I’m not quite sure what the problem is.
Thank you Pog.
I’ll post more later, but (for now) I’d like to ask just one question.
Are we agreed that it’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of particles popping in and out of existence of their own accord?
I mean if anything could pop into existence without a Creator, creation itself would be no evidence of a Creator (and you’d have to be just as agnostic as you say Einstein was, wouldn’t you?)
My gut reaction would be yes, nothing can come from nothing - and I don’t believe there has ever been nothing since God has always been. I don’t see that nothing has ever been a real state of affairs - for if there was nothing then we’d still and always have nothing and thus we wouldn’t be having this discussion!
Though, as far as I understand it, when physicists talk of sub-atomic particles appearing out of nothing they don’t, by their own detailed explanations, mean literally nothing in a philosophical or common-sensical manner. As William Lane Craig keeps pointing out in his debates, by nothing the physicists really mean something arising out of the immaterial (but definitely not nothing) energy filled, lawful quantum vacuum. I don’t think that anyone really speaks of something coming out of nothing (but maybe I’m wrong on this) - I think all start with at least a mathematical realm of physical forces.
I think you’re using your logic more than your gut there (and I don’t think anything in quantum physics, or anything inferences quantum Physicists might attempt to draw from their work could alter the validity of your observation.)
I’ve seen them speak as though they mean sub-atomic particles literally pop in and out of existence, but I’ve always assumed (like Lewis) that they couldn’t really mean what they seemed to be saying.
So Craig (the Philosopher) still has to explain what the new scientists Lewis spoke of “really mean” when they seem to be saying something else.
Interesting.
It doesn’t seem like much has changed since Lewis wrote what I quoted.
"Those who like myself have had a philosophical rather than a scientific education find it almost impossible to believe that the the scientists really mean what they seem to be saying. I cannot help thinking they mean no more than that the movements of individual units are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless."
William Lane Craig (like Lewis) has had a Philosophical education, and you yourself have quoted him to explain what these scientists really mean, so it seems to me that that quote has stood the test of time.
If you agree that it’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of particles popping in and out of existence of their own accord, would you also agree that it’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of mindless particles doing things of their own accord?
I mean moving, changing direction, changing velocity, doing the humanly unexpected while under human observation, without God directly causing them to do these things, or any humanly (as of yet) undiscovered law or force that God created causing them to do these things?
Can you put aside your respect for these scientists long enough to consider whether it’s as philosophically nonsensical to speak of mindless particles moving without a moving mind or force as it is to speak of them popping into existence without a Creator?
Lewis, Aquinas, Agustine, William Lane Craig, Tom Talbott, and (as far as I know) every other Christian Philosopher who has ever given the matter any thought has come to the conclusion that anything that is possible is possible for God, but it is impossible for Him to do anything self-contradictory, or anything that would constitute a logical incongruity.
Back to the simple analogy of tossing a coin.
If you say God could flip a coin, wouldn’t He have to make the coin, create the space and air the coin would travel thru, create a surface for the coin to land on, and create and maintain the forces that would cause it to land tails up or face up?
**
In other words, wouldn’t He have to in effect choose whether the coin was gonna land heads up or tails up before He flipped it?**
Are you suggesting that God kidds Himself into thinking He has a chaotic system because He wants one?
That He somehow blinds Himself to having in effect made the choice of how the coin would land before He tossed it?
Are you suggesting that neither God, or any derivative second cause created by God, would have to set the coin in motion, or stop it’s motion (causing it to land one way or the other)?
Are you suggesting it would not be a logical incongruity to say that God could create a universe where mindless coins just toss themselves, and land however they (mindless though they are) want?
You’re good at quoting scientists who are trying to make philosophical statements (that I don’t believe stand up to logical analysis anymore now than they did when C.S. Lewis was alive), and perhaps one or two chaps trying to wear both hats (and letting the science skew their judgement) , but can you (or they) explain how it’s any less of a logical incongruity to suggest that God can create inanimate particles capable of moving of their own accord, in ways uncontrolled and undesigned by Him, and surprising to Him, than it would be to say that these particles just pop into existence of their own accord?
If you can accept the one, why not the other?
And what need is there for God?
If the basic building blocks of the universe can just pop in and out of existence, and do their own thing, why couldn’t the whole universe?
Do you not yet see any logical or philosophical absurdity in any of the things your scientific sources seem to say (or why a philosopher like Lewis or Craig might have reason to think they must really mean something else)?
Take another look at what Lewis said here.
“Those who like myself have had a philosophical rather than a scientific education find it almost impossible to believe that the the scientists really mean what they seem to be saying. I cannot help thinking they mean no more than that the movements of individual units are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless.”
If these sub-atomic particles (that Lewis referred to as individual units) really are “in themselves random and lawless,” aren’t you suggesting that mindless things can move and stop without a mover, without a reason, and without a Cause?
And how is science at all relevant here?
Math and experimentation (at best) can only tell us how these particles behave under human observation (using our best instruments), it cannot tell us why they behave as they do (or dogmatically assert they behave as they do for no reason.)
How is that any less logically incongruous than saying they could pop in and out of existence without a cause?
If you didn’t disagree with the first possible answer, you wouldn’t believe in any kind of freewill, but if you believe either that “simply given enough time all beings will chose Him,” or (as you say you prefer) that “fully rational beings when faced with the full knowledge of God’s love as manifest in Christ will be unable to not love God,” I think you’re more of a compatibilist than a believer in libertarian freewill.
If you mean libertarian freewill, I don’t know.
This is from another thread on that topic.
I don’t say that there would be absolutely no reason. But if I give the reason, then you will simply say that that reason is what determined my choice. However these “reasons” do not CAUSE my action. I, myself, cause my action.
So the man who steals a bicycle could have refrained from stealing it. If not, how can we hold him responsible for the theft?
It is hard to believe that some people, who themselves have the ability to choose, believe that no one has that ability. It’s a little bit like people who have good eyesight claiming that they cannot see.
Here is a short article from Wikipedia which describes Robert Kane’s position concerning libertarian freedom:
And who are you?
Are you not a product of your heredity, environment, and surrounding circumstances?
And are your choices not governed by who you are, what you know and understand, and what you can foresee of the consequences?
We could hold him responsible so that he could learn from the consequences.
Are you saying that a man who knew he wouldn’t get two feet without being caught, and that the consequences of stealing the bike would far out way driving it two feet, would still be free to steal the bike?
What would it mean to be “free” to make such a totally irrational choice?
On the other hand, if the man who steals the bike thought he needed it, or was entitled to it, never considered any hardship or inconvenience he might cause the owner, and didn’t know he’d be caught, maybe he couldn’t (at that time, with what he knew and believed) have refrained from stealing the bike (and maybe there’s much he can learn from the consequences, and every reason to hold him responsible.)
I see no contradiction in holding someone who was unable to refrain from some action responsible for the action if he’s able to learn from the “character-forming” consequences.