The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Love: is it REALLY Volitional? ie a “free choice”?

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#15

Hi All:

It seems to me that discussions of this type, on this topic, are important to have. My sense is that for some time, more and more people have begun to see the inherent limitations in the strict Predestination and Free will divide – as if they (and salvation) can cleanly and starkly be categorized as entirely one or the other.

We, as UR believers, often find that it strains Predestinations credulity when it is employed to damn the wicked because it strains our conception of a loving God. But we also find strict Arminian free will conviction strains credulity when it is given complete power over our final destination (ie you choose: heaven or hell). This is in part because if it has that much power, surely it deserves some credit for our saving; except we deny we can save ourselves.

In addition, the certainty Predestination seems to bring can be wonderfully comforting. At the same time however, the existence of at least some degree of free will seems quite self evident: to say nothing of the near impossibility of building a theodicy without human free will. (an incredibly important point as Christguy90 reminds us…) Human passivity and determinism thus seem highly unlikely, but Free Will as first cause seems just as unlikely (and unbiblical). (by the way… is a self interested “reaction” or “impulse” really a free choice??) All this should serve, it seems to me, to divert people away from dogmatic assertions about either Predestination or Free Will.

Since I deal almost exclusively with Free Will Arminians in my world (ie there seem to be no Calvinists in my circle of friends!) my apparent attack of Free Will (ie is love REALLY an act of free will??) is not intended to destroy the idea of free will, but to explore it’s limits and scope.

Thus, if Arminians have a problem with UR (and they do of course) it’s not just because of their acceptance of the possibility of damnation, but it’s also that they overvalue Free Will. My experience is that a direct attack on the idea of damnation being permanent meets only with active resistance. Thus, I’m thinking an “attack” on Free Will – by suggesting it is limited – might enhance our chances of getting them to see a valid reason to consider UR and awaken in them a reason to re-evaluate the idea of permanent hell.

Because honestly, I often am just utterly bewildered at how difficult it is for folks to see how poorly hell (ect or annihilation) is compatible with a loving God and how little is solved if sin’s “solution” really is just to be rid of sinners by corralling them in ect hell or dispensing with them altogether via annihilation. My hope is that these kind of exchanges will sharpen our ability to challenge Arminians…

So, as Sherman suggests here (as I’m reading you Sherman!!)

we should really have little to fear of the accusation that God is “determining” us when He loves us, but also that it is pretty much His promise that, because He has freed us, at the Cross, we need no longer be separated from this kind of relationship by our own fallenness. Further, this raises the question of how a choice against God can be called “free” when it is so obviously not in our best interest…

Still thinking here; thanks all for your help!!

Bobx3

#16

Actually, I have never met anyone, or read any writer, who holds that our choices are not influenced. Such a position seems to me to be contrary to the obvious.

#17

Hi Paidion:
Your posts are always appreciated. Thanks.
You said, of Libertarian Free Will

In the context of my premise and question, how does this view fit what you are saying?
My assertion is that Love really doesn’t seem so free at all in the examples I’ve mentioned. In fact, it seems almost compelled. In a really nice way!
I would have to agree with you however that it IS, in some limited and remote and extremely unlikely way, theoretically possible for me to choose not to love God… ??
In your view, is this sufficient to qualify my possible choice against as free? Even though it is vanishingly unlikely??

If you say “yes” then we really are on the same page I think :smiley: :smiley:

Further, I have always thought that sin will always be a choice – even after eons of sinless bliss with God. God promises sin will “be no more” but that’s not because it’s not a hypothetical choice. It’s because every single mind in the universe, knowing full well both the horrors of sin, and the bliss of God’s fullness, as well as being truly free, wouldn’t even dream of making that destructive choice! (maybe this is what Revelation means when it talks of being “sealed”…)

Thanks,

Bobx3

#18

I think, Bob, that sin WILL always theoretically be a possible “choice,” but in the sense that, having dogs around, doing what dogs do, I COULD take them outside when I’m done writing this and soon I could have a nice snack of steaming doggy poo. :open_mouth: Maybe it’s not uninfluenced, but I don’t see that as a viable choice. In that light, I see the theoretical possibility of sane, free daughters and sons of God going back to sin as so infinitesimal as to be literally non-existent. :wink:

#19

I admit that I moved into a discussion of free will apart from your premise and question.

However, I think it still fits.

I think you are using the word “love” as an emotion. We all know that anger, love feelings, embarrasment, and all other emotions come and go. We don’t seem to have much control of them. It is little, if any, help to an angry person to tell him, “Don’t be angry.” An emotion cannot be turned on and off in response to a command.

However, Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Thus this word “αγαπαω” must not refer to an emotion. Jesus’ command can be obeyed. It is a decision; it requires free will. Indeed, Jesus tells us HOW to love our enemies, namely, pray for them (Matt 5:44), do good to them (Luke 6:27), and lend to them expecting nothing in return (Luke 6:35). He doesn’t ask us to have love feelings toward them—though often when we act in love, love feelings follow.

I remember in a “marriage encounter” session which I attended with my first wife who is now deceased, we were taught that love is not a feeling, but rather a decision. A decision requires free will.

There is a Greek word, sometimes translated as “love”, but perhaps more accurately translated as “like” or “be fond of”. It is “φιλεω”. Never does Jesus command anyone to like or be fond of someone else. However Paul does say that older women should train younger women to be fond of their husbands and children (Titus 2:4). So a person can be trained to have love feelings—probably by example.

So to have love feelings for God or Jesus is not a decision—does not require free will. But to love God or Jesus (in the sense of “αγαπαω”) does require free will. We love Him by obeying Him. When we do that, love feelings will follow—both to Him and from Him!

#20

I won’t add to much to this discussion as much has been said far more eloquently and knowledgeably then I ever could. There are only few things to respond to first to simply say I understand the utter sense of God’s reality when I first became a Christian and being caught up not just feeling and joy of it, but the clarity and conviction, very similar in respects to falling in love, but more profound I think, but that obvious awareness went, and my scrupulosity kicked in around the same time. I won’t detail what followed afterwards to much, only to say I had no idea what was happening then (and not for over ten years after that) and it was a period of true mental anguish and hell, made worse as it seemed accompanied by the loss of sensing God’s active Presence, but one thing I have learnt is the value of the experiences of people in the biblical narratives and in the Psalms. Many there suffered great depression and sense of God’s total abandonment of them, they could not feel or see Him at all, but He was there right with them, and it is a hard lesson I am learning (and needing to learn again every day) but often those times when we can’t see or feel Him at all that He is most strongly with it, and it’s those times, and those times of trouble when we can grow the most, and can be used by Him to bring love and His restoration and healing to others in ways that couldn’t happen otherwise. It’s by self-sacrificial love and service the Kingdom comes, the way of the cross, as our King is a the Servant King, there isn’t any other way, as hard as it can be, but unlike Himself, we are never alone in it, He always helps us carry such burdens, even when we don’t feel Him.

The second thing is something I touched on in another thread, but I always feel discussions about the need to restrict our free wills or say that full libertarian free wills as part of our personal make-up cannot fully be the case if God is to be fully sovereign and achieve His purposes just seems to put limits on God to me (who doesn’t have any), and says that He isn’t actually sovereign in and through all things, that He isn’t infinitely wise, creative and such. God’s sovereignty and how it fully works is beyond human ability to fully comprehend, but we often attempt to reduce it to something we can look at and take apart, but I don’t think we can, God is both sovereign, wise, creative and powerful enough (infinitely so) to remain fully in control of all things and work through all things without having to deny libertarian free-will to His creatures or reduce or effect it in any way and still bring about His intentions for humanity and their salvation and freedom, and the through them, the world’s rescue, salvation and liberation. Anyway, my thoughts for what they are worth we expressed near the bottom of this thread:

Finally to the question of would it be possible for us to sin in the fully redeemed and restored world and universe after the resurrection if we have libertarian free-will (or some form of it), I don’t think so. Death itself is the completion and the end of sin, the resurrection is going through and beyond death, life after life after death as NT Wright often likes to say, the corruptible becomes incorruptible, our total selves of mind, persona, body etc being completely repaired, restored and glorified with the fullness of Life Himself, a body and life that is powered by the Spirit. The twists, corruptions and false delusions that are the result of death’s corruption that give rise to sin will be gone and repaired, and we will think and feel clearly in ways we can’t fully comprehend now. We will be fully human then, as we are meant to be, beyond death, and the slavery of sin and death, and how it infects our whole selves, our thoughts and perceptions of things will be cleared completely. We will be fully free to be ourselves, to be humanity at last, though as a hypothetical the freedom to act in sin would be there, it would not be an actual or viable choice not because God affected our wills but because we then will be full alive, and be thinking, feeling and acting will full and total clarity and knowing, and as such those actions would be actually impossibly even if they would be hypothetically possible. And example within life as it is now, would be someone who had been suffering severe psychosis and had been treated and cured completely (usually sadly such conditions are not so easily treated but it will suffice for an example) they could hypothetically continue to act in a paranoid or delusional manner, but in reality they never would because they had come through that and their minds and selves are functionally fully and clearly (perhaps for the first time). In fact, they free to be themselves, to act freely for the first time perhaps in their lives, their mind and thoughts their own, and are not in slavery to the extreme mental illness they were under, and so while they would technically be free to continue to act delusionally, they never would because they no longer are, and are finally free from such an illness that had them enslaved.

Perhaps this is part of the reason God allows humanity to walk through the hard and sometimes terrible things the evil that is in us and around us causes, both to work through us to bring His healing in those situations, but also to work through us ourselves as part of the process of restoring and healing us, until death (and sin from which death is the manifestation with it) is destroyed through the resurrection, swallowed into it’s own nothingness, as He takes up everything we have done and grow through by the Spirit, and completes our restoration and healing in the great act that takes us beyond death and decay and into full life and freedom.

Well that is how I see that issue anyhow (a bit rambling, but I hope and pray it can help you a little at least).

#21

I believe that you have made a number of important and profound points in this thread, Bob, including the one I just quoted above. With respect to that quotation, I thought I would point out that, despite his commitment to a free will theodicy of hell, C. S. Lewis described his own conversion to Christianity in a way that comports very well with what you have said above. For he explicitly stated that at the precise time of his conversion no alternative option was genuinely open to him. In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, he thus wrote:

Note his reference to a kind of compulsion that results in a sense of liberation. But even though he felt utterly boxed in or checkmated in the sense that every motive for resistance had somehow been undermined and no live alternative remained available to him, he also spoke in the same context of having nonetheless made a free choice. He observed first that “before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.” But lest he should be misunderstood, he immediately added the following clarification: “I say, ‘I chose,’ yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite. . . . You could argue that I was not a free agent, but I am more inclined to think that this came nearer to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done. Necessity may not [always] be the opposite of freedom . . .”

According to Lewis, then, his submission to God was not free in the sense that it remained psychologically possible, at the time he knelt and prayed, that he should have refrained from doing so, but his submission nonetheless “came nearer,” in his own words, “to being a perfectly free act than most that I have ever done.” Can we make sense this? I think we can; and when we do, we will indeed “plumb the depth of the Divine mercy.” But that requires a much more complete analysis of human freedom than the so-called Free Will Theists typically give. It requires an analysis that enables us to hold together two seemingly incongruous ideas: the idea that human freedom could never exist in a fully deterministic universe, and the idea that God can nonetheless checkmate each of us in the end without controlling our individual choices and without causally determining our actions. So for anyone who might be interested in pursuing this matter further, I plan to start a new topic under “Tom’s Forums” for its discussion. I have no desire, however, to co-opt the excellent discussion here, so I may wait a while before beginning a new thread. And I may even jump into this one occasionally, as I just did.

-Tom

#22

Hi Cindy
This is an intriguing comment – and pertinent to the point I’m trying to make about the nature of volition and choice. The (potential) act you describe (‘snacking on dog poo’) evokes feelings of disgust, grossness, and revulsion. But nobody in their right mind would therefore suggest "Now Cindy, Bob, you know you *can’t trust *your “feelings” – don’t base your actions on your “feelings”.

So, is the “act” based on principle, or on feeling? Why would it even be necessry to distingusih between principle and feelings?? The “choice” to eat/not eat dog poo is such an obviously ludicrous one that of course one wouldn’t do it.

Now however comes the next question: is the choice not to eat actually free?? Feelings have approximately zero to do with the decision – even though they are very strong feelings indeed!

Paidion seems to imply, if I read him as he intends, that choice is present and necessary (for free will to be real) in, per his example, the choice to love our enemies. The idea being, I suppose, that I may not *feel *like loving my enemy, but do anyway because of the principle of love. Except salvation depends on my response to God – not my enemies. And my response to God, given My having been overwhelmed by the sense of His glory and love, feels more compelled than it does free! So my love for God is no less pricipled just because I also have strong feelings about the matter!

And in this state of feeling compelled by the love of God, I’d like to suggest that I am more free than without it. And Christ has promised that we will be free. (not we could be free – if we choose it…)

Thinking…

Bobx3

#23

Chrisguy90,

I find your arguments for ‘freewill’ (the magic pill Paidion calls ability to just transcend all the usual influences) especially articulate, succinct, and profound. But I’ll risk reaching for a feeble rejoinder.

Argument 1 (knowing freewill is as sure as knowing I love my mother) eludes me. If ‘love’ is selfless commitment, such claims are plainly often illusions! If love means a feeling, then yes, only we can declare what we feel. But in parallel, if ‘free-will’ is a feeling we have, it could well also be illusory, unless we assume that feelings are always reliable. But don’t we observe that those who exhibit compulsive addictions often most subjectively insist that they are free and in control?

You say only freewill can explain “where evil comes from.” But few thinkers are satisfied with how it would require so many natural evils like disasters, or even how it explains our universal & certain bent toward sin. Thus, it doesn’t really remove mystery over God’s nature or ways.

I am sympathetic with your astute repetition that the real argument for free will is that it alone can make moral sense of evil (and thus make choices “blame”-worthy). My gut agrees that evil is so horrific that it must be mutually exclusive of God and goodness. Of course, determinists will say our desire to disconnect God and awful events and choices is irrelevant to their empirical case that cause & effect explains each outcome. I.e. evidence seems weak that we actually do choose contrary to all the influences that shape us. As you grant, they’ll say that what happens is “just what you’d expect under my doctrine.”

We who need theodicy are drawn to assuming that responsibility & blameworthy consequences imply ability to transcend such influencing factors, and that God has no foundational role in perverse choices. You conclude, freewill is outside of God & so he needn’t be evil’s source.

But I not only said he’s “involved in the preservation of evil,” but that he must have purposely created the very conditions that inevitably produce so much evil. Indeed, the Bible suggests we arrive so blind, dead, deceived, and ignorant that no one escapes evil choices. Even non-believers sense that we commonly lack full ability to see or value proper choices, or to grasp what it means to be ‘free’ and blameworthy. In practice, we sense that ‘freedom’ and its’ consequences should be proportioned to our experience that ability to rightly choose varies by degrees.

E.g. someone completely forced (externally) to an action may be exonerated. And if mental recognition of reality seems limited (or diminished capacity), we may consider blame lessened. Some grace may even be given to those ignorant of the law or of moral principles, or if a perverse choice is seen as less intentional or defiant. Those traumatized by childhood or spousal abuse may be held less accountable for an evil choice. And of course, the effects of more universal hereditary and environmental conditioning on our choices is even harder to know.

The alternative to simply explaining terrible things by a magic pill freedom to be foolishly perverse which has nothing to do with God, may not require a scripted ‘determinism.’ Yet perhaps God established the very conditions that make bad choices and the need to learn and grow through them unavoidable. Indeed Scripture’s God seems to see our inability as the grounds that call for grace toward our blameworthiness (his mercy knows we’re made of dust…Because I was ignorant, God had mercy on me-Paul… Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do).

If a two year old disobediently ran in the street, though we’d temper our response with compassion, we might employ painful consequences, even IF we saw that she had not yet sufficiently grasped the implications of that choice in order to properly make it. God’s need to condition and train me in righteousness can feel like this to me. So we may see evil and punitive ‘blame’ as requiring the ability to freely transcend our ignorant finitude. But could it be that even if we lacked such amazing ability, a gracious pedagogy would still treat us with responsibility and consequences in order that we can learn and grow into the character and conscious identity that God intends for us as persons distinct from Him?

Grace be with you,
Bob

#24

Is the choice not to eat actually free? Hmm . . . I suppose you could say that we’re compelled by instinct not to eat certain things that are disgusting to us. My dogs love to eat poo, but they’re connoisseurs. They won’t eat each other’s, nor that of a coyote. They restrict themselves to bovine, deer, and elk poo. :unamused: What’s more, they seem to think it has fragrance enhancement properties. :imp: :imp: :imp: ARGH!!! It’s so frustrating to civilize dogs. I wonder if that’s meant to teach me how Papa feels sometimes. :laughing: Because I think sin is probably a lot more disgusting to Him, who sees it for what it is, than copraphagic dogs are to me. But the dogs LIKE being copraphages. THEY think it’s ever so nice. If they refrain it’s only from fear of ME, the one with the ability to deliver what the collar manufacturer calls a “stimulus” with the mere press of a button. I seldom have to do that, but I do use the “positive reinforcement” (aka buzzer) fairly frequently, just to remind them what I COULD do.

I see my dogs as in process of becoming “real” (Velveteen Rabbit) or “conscious” or if you like, “sentient.” It’s my duty to wake them if I can, or at least to lighten the heaviness of sleep in them. As long as we’re living by mere instinct, are we really free? It’s the instinct of a male animal to mate with any female of his species in estrus. He therefore does his best to fulfill that instinct. Human males are (or ought to be) different. They ought to control themselves, choose one female, and care for her and their children and become civilized and loving and thereby that much more like God (and less subject to the beast nature). Some men see this as horribly restricting. Others see it as becoming mature and free from compulsive desires, and wouldn’t have it any other way – in fact, would be horrified at the suggestion that they might want to act like a mere animal.

It seems to me that the act (or refusal to act) is based on fear first – the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom – and then on principal, and finally, when one is far nearer to freedom, on feeling (though it doesn’t cease to be principled behavior). The higher behavior becomes natural to us even as the lower behavior becomes unnatural. I can see why we might aspire to a higher behavior that is, as yet, unnatural to us. God draws us in that direction, and we draw one another (or we should), spurring one another on to good works. In the service of reaching that higher behavior, we might force ourselves to do something that seems undesirable to us (restricting our lust or our laziness or our anger, etc.). I don’t see that as a viable possibility in the other direction, though. I can’t imagine forcing myself to eat dog poo against all my visceral repulsion. I can, however, easily imagine forcing myself to eat something like kale. It doesn’t hold anything like the repellent properties of poo, but it’s not as far off as you might think. :laughing:

That said, I COULD choose to eat a stale supermarket cake-based snack from a plastic wrapper, preferring it over a colorful fresh salad. If I choose either one or the other, it’s a free choice. I don’t like the nasty cake and I do like the salad, but it’s still a free choice. Let’s take it up a notch and say I’m offered a bowl of perfectly ripe, plump pomegranate arils (which I have a hard time resisting) or the stale cake snack. Is the choice less free because the draw of the lovely red jewel-like arils is simply too much to resist? I can tell you that at this point there is precisely zero chance I’m going for the cake. Even if it were fresh from the best baker in town. But do I still have a choice, despite my feelings? Yes, of course I do. I could still take the cake. I won’t, but I COULD.

We can still choose the sin too, even in light of the magnificent goodness of God, fully displayed. We’ve experienced the sin and we can go for it if we love it that much. I think probably some people WILL go for it, for a while – until they discover they’re eating dog poo. Given full knowledge and understanding, there’s just no conceivable way you’d go on doing that. Nevertheless, no one’s forcing anyone. You can eat if you want to – only you won’t want to. Does that make sense?

Love, Cindy

#25

Hi Tom:
Welcome to the thread and great to have you here! I trust you are well.

As for co-opting the conversation, not to worry from my perspective. It would be a delight to have that happen! I can think of no one better to conduct the kind of nuanced inquiry into the actual realities of free will than you. (I realize you’ve dealt with it in the past as well…)

In all candor, I have developed a sense of melancholy, of sadness, at how poorly I (and we who hold to UR) have been able to converse with my (our) mostly Arminian free will friends on this topic. They hear my dissections of free will as an attack (ie make free will go away and all you have is predestination left; that’s how they tend to see UR) and get defensive. What results is cliches (without free will you’re a robot; God lets us freely choose hell etc etc) that obscure, rather than clarify. So I think we all could improve our practical understandings of free will with these kinds of sober conversations… It does seem odd to me that we don’t seem to even have a common language to discuss this meaningfully with our Arminian brothers. So that’s an area we UR believers need to work on…

As a good example, I find your mention of CS Lewis reminds us that he presents us with some very mixed messages. The quotes you share shows that he concedes (or very nearly so) that the “choice” was not really volitional (as we usually understand that term) or voluntary or particularly self generated. It “just happened” as it were. Well, if that’s true (and I think it very much is true!) why would he then insist, or at least suggest, that for those poor fellows in hell, the door is locked from the inside? That is, if he needed, and is given, an insight and power that seems to (almost) overwhelm him, why not allow the same for that soul who has so poorly “chosen” hell? Surely he doesn’t credit himself for his cleverness at choosing wisely. (I think Jason has mentioned that he believes Lewis was in the process of moving to UR.)

I recall Apologists (eg Ravi Zacharias, and others) talk about faith by saying that God gives enough evidence so that belief is reasonable, but not so much that it can be compelled. Hence the need for “faith”. I guess I’m confessing that I’m not entirely happy with that idea. Why? Because if God could overwhelm me with evidence, who would even protest?? Why is being overwhelmed with evidence somehow out-of-bounds? How on earth can I equate less-than-overwhelming evidence with being “free”?? The exact opposite seems more likely!!

So, as I say, lots to work on and it’d be a real joy and delight to do it with you on “Tom’s Forums”. I’m fairly certain most all here would agree with me!

All the best Tom,

Bobx3

(PS – must have hit the “send” button with my reply to Cindy mere seconds after you posted your note!!)

#26

Well I had to look up the one word :smiley: but that was a very good post in a thread with a number of very good posts.

I am reminded of the chapter “Men Without Chests” in Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Put very simply, he thinks of education as teaching the head to rule the gut through the chest. In other words, of course, the rational mind should rule over the animal instincts and appetites, but it can only do so (!) with the help and mediation of the trained sentiments of ‘the heart’.

GMac said something like that:
And he who thinks, in his great plenitude,
To right himself, and set his spirit free,
Without the might of higher communings,
Is foolish also–save he willed himself to be.

It seems to take the presence of those better and wiser than ourselves to fill our hearts with the right responses - feelings, if you will - to situations and ideas. GMac is such a person, for me, but we all drink at different wells.

I THINK that the ‘will’ is ‘located’ in the chest - if our hearts are astray, the rational mind is just about powerless. Lewis mentioned that he would rather trust an agnostic, raised in a good and loving home, than a ‘believer’ raised by scoundrels - something like that - he was pointing to the chest and saying that the trained sentiments and feelings - for instance, feeling that one ought to pay back a loan, that it is the right thing to do - outweigh a lukewarm ‘believer’ whose heart blows this way and that with any prevailing winds.

As to the freedom of will to love - I think the ‘classical’ ideas about education, as Lewis pointed out - are spot-on: and as scripture says, we are to love God, not just the idea of God, with our whole being.

#27

I thought I’d jump in here and totally derail this topic. :laughing:

Just kidding, of course, but there was something Cindy said that resonated and may be worth exploring…

I feel the same way, Cindy! :smiley: I can see them trying to understand me and trying to please, but also following their instincts at at times(too often, I suppose.) I also think that dogs show not just affection, but (dare I say it) “real love”. There are too many stories of what dogs have done for their masters or their behavior after they’ve died to attribute it simply to a desire to keep the meals coming.

In any event, my point is that there is analogy somewhere here (and a “true” analogy at that) in the relationship between humans and dogs and God and humans. Of course everyone know dogs see their owners as “gods” as they can open doors and have unlimited access to food. :wink: I guess my point is, are we really that different from dogs? Do dogs love their masters because of “free will”? What kind of “will” do dogs even have and does it even matter? I really don’t know, but it makes me wonder…

#28

Hi NightRevan: I’m not sure I understand what you mean here… because later you say

This seems to affirm just what I am trying to assert. Yes, sin will be, at least, hypothetically possible. Will it happen? Absolutely not.
Thus the question is, and given that we both seem to believe that sin will be both a possibility, and an impossibility, will we consider ourselves to be ***free ***in the hereafter??
My premise is that we will be more free in this condition than we have ever been before! But it is a freedom that is fully informed (thus we wouldn’t dream of “going there” – ie we know where that path leads)

Just trying to clarify/understand…

Bobx3

#29

We should start a new topic on that, Steve. It would be fun to discuss. :slight_smile: I love my doggies and my doggies love me – but not as much as they love my DH, who is much too marshmallowy with them. :wink:

#30

Bob X3, I’m with you. I think that you and I agree. We will be free (If the Son sets you free you will be (not you are already) free indeed.) We need to be made free and when we ARE made free, we’ll no longer be slaves at all, at all to sin. Therefore though we COULD choose it, we never will and never would, because we don’t WANT to. We’re free to do what we’ve always wanted to do – to be happy, to make our loved ones happy, and most of all, to delight in our God. As for those who haven’t always wanted that, well they’ll be free enough to know it’s just plain daft NOT to want that. :wink:

#31

Hi alecforbes and Cindy…
Well yes, derail a bit perhaps…
It seems you detect a level of cognition in the dog world that, well, escapes most of the rest of us! I’ve a wife, and a sister, that are forever relaying to me exactly what this dog is thinking! They “channel” the dogs mind for me!
Stop! I say… you may not anthropomorphize this animal in this way! These are your feelings/thoughts which are being projected upon this dog!

Note then, I was speaking of what it would be like for a HUMAN to do that unspeakable act of which we dare not, well, speak. I in no way wanted to enter the realm of what might be happening in the dogs mind as he engaged in that … unspeakable act.

To the point then… (and I’m fully willing to grant that ALL dogs will be saved! Thus, we can confine our discussion to the more flawed species: humans) When it comes to responding to that overwhelming flash of insight, to that overwhelming realization of love, to the “sudden” awareness that God is not only there, but intends to enjoy our companionship forever, that response is rather hard for me to categorize as a “free” one. And yet, it’s a demonstration of a freedom never before experienced.

That is why it’s so intriguing…

Bobx3

#32

Okay . . . here’s the new home of the doggie discussion. :wink: Waking Fido, Fifi, and maybe even Felix

#33

Your wife and sites are, perhaps, very wise… :smiley: I won’t push it, but I suspect there is a correlation between dogs and their masters (much like parents and children) which is under appreciated and poorly understood. :smiley: That being said, there are, of course, major differences between humans and dogs, not the least of which is thought for the future and appreciation for mortality. I think the “dog and master” idea could be worth exploring at some point, but I’ll have to leave it for now and we’ll get back to that more “flawed species” and its Master.

Edit: I see Cindy has started a thread about the whole dog thing, which is nice. :wink:

#34

Cindy’s example of “eating steaming dog poo” illustrates the importance of distinguishing a host of different senses in which people sometimes use the term “freedom.” So here are two senses in which she may indeed be free to eat such a snack:

  1. Even as she has the ability and knowhow to eat a hotdog, so she has the ability and knowhow to eat what her dogs deposit on her lawn. She need only pick it up, put it in her mouth, and start chewing. (Okay, that’s a bit over the top, but, seriously (?), I’m not sure which would be unhealthier: eating an ordinary beef hotdog or eating dog poo. Hee. Hee.)

  2. When Cindy walks her dogs, the act of eating fresh dog poo is occasionally available to her in this sense: She would successfully do it if she should undertake to do so. She is thus sometimes free to eat dog poo in a sense that she is not free to fly like a bird.

Now with respect to 1), any good libertarian would point out that having the ability and knowhow to do something in no way guarantees the psychological possibility that one would want to do it; and with respect to 2), a libertarian would likewise point out that an action’s being available in the specified sense in no way guarantees the psychological possibility that one would undertake to do it. Still, we can easily imagine a context in which I might indeed find it psychologically possible to undertake eating dog poo. If, for some strange reason that I’ll not even try to specify, my eating such an unappetizing morsel would prevent some mad man from carrying out a threat to torture one of my own precious granddaughters, I would have little trouble doing it.

Generalizing from such examples, libertarians typically adopt the following principle: I refrain from some action (whether it be eating dog poo or committing some sin) freely in a given context only if it is psychologically possible in that context that I should actually do the thing I have chosen not to do. But as initially plausible as such a principle may seem, I now believe that it rests upon a mistake; and it is, in any case, utterly inconsistent with our ordinary paradigms of free action, such as a loving mother’s caring for her beloved baby and an honest banker’s refusing a bribe. If a mother, filled with love for her baby, finds it utterly unthinkable and therefore psychologically impossible to neglect her baby, then she does not, given this common libertarian principle, care for baby freely. And similarly for the honest banker who finds it psychological impossible to accept a bribe: Such a banker does not refuse the bribe freely. Neither do the perfected saints in heaven obey God freely, since it is no longer psychologically possible that they should disobey him. And neither does God himself act freely with respect to his most important actions, since it is not even possible that he should act in unloving ways. Are not these implications counterintuitive? I certainly find them so. I also think that Free Will Theists need to rethink their understanding of freedom in a way that enables them to explain why the loving mother freely cares for her baby, why the perfected saint freely obeys God, and why God himself acts freely with respect to his most important actions.

Any thoughts?

-Tom