Re: Does Free WIll Necessitate Divine Ignorance?

[Silenus6]

He elects, whom God has elected;

he chooses, who is chosen:

Free Will is Divine Intervention.

[hempartist420]

@Silenus6 If free will is "divine invervention" then it's not free will is it?

[D4R3W]

God is like the number zero. 1) It is clearly something undefined. 2) It is always used as a place holder for things we don't understand. 3) It feels like it should be there between the scheme of things but it seems to me it only exists in the imagination.

[axisares]

As Salieri was being pushed through the madhouse he conferred his blessings to the residents exclaiming, "Mediocrities of the world--I forgive you!"

[Salieri325]

I'm not even going to bother watching the rest of this; your "arguments" (which seem more like comments without any thought process behind them) are ridiculous. Go back to philosophy 101.

[SilenzioDiEsistenza]

@Salieri325 is that truth you're speaking, or maybe a venting of unrelated frustration? because that's what your comment seems to me.

[Salieri325]

Why do you use examples from myths concerning the "tree of good and evil?" Why are you transplanting theological concepts of grace and sin into the realm of philosophical discussion? If you're going to discuss god correct your terms and discuss the philosophical concept of the conserving power of God... Don't they teach you idiots anything in school?

[SilenzioDiEsistenza]

@Salieri325 so... you must be a teacher then? congrats! join the moronic community then of teachers and enjoy imposing your constrictions on others. if this guy is really as stupid as you try to make him to be, he won't understand where you're coming from with your comment, and if he's on the contrary an intelligent person, he will see the stupidity in what you say, and that leaves your comment useless don't it? and your questions in any case unanswered.

[Salieri325]

Why does every contemporary "philosopher" suppose that we are capable of knowledge? Simply because we assume the our sense experience to be self-evident of itself?

[Salieri325]

You seem to equate knowledge with his freedom in some convoluted attempt to negate it, as though "he" as freedom in the first place? Why? You think that because he is some necessary being that his act of creating must be free? How do we make that hop skip and a jump within logical boundaries? Why must everyone insist upon applying outdated Thomistic, Aristotelian concepts to the figure of God?

[Salieri325]

If God is "omnipotent" he cannot "do" in the logical order of time as you're suggesting. There is no next and there is no before. You also seem to suggest a prior state of ignorance to the act of knowing. If God is pure act he knows all so you just ran a circle around yourself... God cannot be it, he, or she... Stop applying spacio-temporal features to God such as freedom. We throw this word around as if to say God is absolute and "free" when that presupposed to multiplicity of choices.

[wholethinker]

4:28

"...it's whole that contains time..."

That means it contains all past and future, including all choices taken by men.

That is, from God's point of view there is no free will for men, as God already contains the information about what was and will be chosen.

Thus, the free will is an illusion.

If, according to Whitehead, God is a creature by Itself, it is possible that It does not have free will if It was created in the deterministic process of creation.

[wholethinker]

3:03 "knowledge is intrinsically temporal..."

Omnipotence, as I understand, is about a capability of doing. Doing is a temporal activity by itself.

Is it relevant to talk about omnipotence of the God that transcends time, is not temporal?

[ZSB12]

maybe you just cannot fathom that god is bigger than you could ever imagine!.. and cannot classify and therefore you do not know what to do? because you cannot classify it? because you need to classify it? Just BE. it is not for you to comprehend. stop trying! it is only in the 'surrender' of not trying that you will have a chance to understand. .... however bless you for your trying... i really liked your thought process.

[De4sher]

how about if there's no god at all?

that saves a lot of time and neurons.

[AshRNand]

Hi,

I dont mean to be rude - but it would be alot easier to follow what your saying if you kept the "err" and "umm" to a minimum

[jfallahi]

Matthew,

I've been reading David Hume recently, and am compelled by his arguments regarding the origins of ideas (Section 2 of "Concerning Human Understanding"). My concern is not whether we have knowledge of God or any spiritual reality, but where it comes from. I.e., if it comes from a contingent, created and thus limited and imperfect 'self' then by what means do we weigh it's truth value? What is the 'touchstone' that as philosophers we seek as a measure, or is there no measure?

[0GodsAngeL0]

so God is that no-thing were all things come from, God is everyting and nothing, so we are all God and we are all one in that point that is source, i wish all to awaken

[BlazzingSun]

time...

knowledge...

He knows...

sorry...

thank you very much...

[danbit5]

mathamatics seems so strange,im no bright spark,but when i first got online i done a couple of things then i entered a john titor,low and behold i was banned a few days after i studied the twin paradox its not possible,and why the maths added up would a guy spend 4 years floating in the sky see his brother a grandfather when he gets back?

[CP91311]

To produce through imaginative skill "You have it you use it"

Think Wisely!

[earthe1]

I highly recommend that you read.......Our Solarian Legacy by Paul Von Ward. It has many answers and raises just as many questions. It takes us further in our

 journey of life.

[Cman158]

i have a question for you...what religion do you belong to?

[0ThouArtThat0]

the religion that celebrates earth and human solidarity.

[wbiggjay]

of 'feels' like I have free will, but that seems to be because we are conscious.

You stated that there would be no conceptuality, understanding, or conscious experience if everything was a result of past happening. Where did you get this idea? What makes you think it is true?

And I believe that anything is possible, therefore agreeing with your 'space of possibility'. But just because something 'evolves into consciousness' doesn't necessarily mean that we aren't just like everything else,

[wbiggjay]

and that is to say that just because something 'evolves into consciousness' doesn't necessarily mean that we aren't just like everything else, a reaction of what has/is happening.

[wbiggjay]

I didn't mean to post my last two comments where I did, but I shall resume here.

Indeed we are taught that we have free will, you can find it almost anywhere if not anywhere.

You say that it is self-evident that humans have a will power. How, really is anything self-evident other than MAYBE physical things? Also the statement about me 'feeling' like a have will goes along with your statement. Just because I 'feel'

[wbiggjay]

like I have free will to do something doesn't mean I do. Also, I acknowledge that you said by definition, there is no 'free' will, but I do not understand how this concept could have a gray area, can't there only be black or white?

Also, whatever will power (as some would call it) one has is due to past experience.

[wbiggjay]

My theory creates room for the subconscious mind(s), an omniscient or omnipotent (or whatever word you used) God, and is reflected in other constructs (such as the one with children.)

[wbiggjay]

And really, how are 'our wills' as strong as you think they are if (and I do believe) we have (a) subconscious mind(s)?

Or does your belief somehow hold room for what I have just described?

[wbiggjay]

THERE IS NO FREE WILL!!!!!!!!

Every action has a reaction, so since the beginning of the universe or time or whatever you want to call it, every thing has simply been reacting!!!!!

Why don't people understand this concept? If you choose to do something, there is a reason why you have chosen it, if that reason (or reasons) were not there or had not happened, then you wouldn't choose it!

It's not that hard to understand.

I believe that it is even evident (to an extent at least) in The Bible.

[0ThouArtThat0]

If everything was merely a necessary reaction from antecedent causes, the fact of novel evolution would be entirely inexplicable. New forms emerge in time, which is evidence enough to reject your theory of perpetual reaction. Of course the past conditions what can happen now, but it does not determine it.

[wbiggjay]

What do you mean by novel evolution?

If you are referring to Darwinian evolution, then I don't see how you have backed your claim.

I also don't see how new forms emerging (which I am going to interpret as another way of phrasing the concept of evolution)

proves my theory false.

What I meant by there being a reason for why someone choses something, I meant that there is a cause for why you do it.

For example, my friend was going to run a red light the other day, but decided not to when

[wbiggjay]

he saw a police car nearby. The police car was a stimulus that kept him from pursuing his original intention. But had the police car not been there, then he would have kept going. The stimulus provided the change of his decision, he did not.

An object keeps going until acted upon by another force, which I believe is Newton's first law, can be applied here and is analogous.

Another example is that, as humans, we learn things through observation. Little children grow up highly influenced by

[wbiggjay]

their parents. The kids mimic their parents' reactions to certain situations, it is the only thing they know to do. But if exposed to other things (TV, other family members, etc.) then their reactions will change to an extent, but only because they were exposed to it. These outside forces have made impressions on them. They act out these impressions, which cause certain things to happen, which then cause other things to happen, etc.

[wbiggjay]

But anyway that analogy (the one about children) is MOSTLY just a reflection of my theory of 'everything being a chain reaction'/'no free will'.

Even psychologists say that behavior is determined by biology, experience, or both.

I personally believe that it is both because your biological make-up influences your experiences, which influence your behavior.

That's all I have to say for now, but I respect your views and welcome any critism or disagreement you or anyone else may have, so

[wbiggjay]

That's all I have to say for now, but I would like to say that I respect your views and welcome any critism or disagreement you or anyone else may have. Therefore, please do post such things if you feel the need to

[0ThouArtThat0]

You ask why people cannot understand this concept of complete determinism, but if you are consistent in your reasoning you'd already have seen that they could not understand the concept because such an achievement presupposes that one could be self-causing--that one's reasons are internally determined. Conceptual thought implies access to pure potentiality and comes to understand actuality by contrast with it.

[0ThouArtThat0]

If all was truly determined by prior causes, there would be no such thing as conceptuality or understanding. Nor would there even be conscious experience.

Yes, we live and act within a causal nexus. Everything is connected and so nothing happens entirely in private (there is no absolute free will). But to recognize that the universe evolves is to also see that the later forms, while related to earlier forms, are never the inevitable outcome of them. There is always a space of possibility.

[wbiggjay]

Well I am consistent in my reasoning and my reasoning is one may not understand this concept for various reasons, but not of their doing. It could have been that they don't bear the intelligence needed for such a task, perhaps they did not do well in school, but I think the main one is that an enormous amount of people are taught that they have free will all their lives. And that is understandable because humans are conscious and was can think of past, present, and/or future, and to me it kind

[0ThouArtThat0]

We are not taught that we have will power. It is among the most obvious abilities one discovers upon becoming conscious of existence. It is in fact a prerequisite for becoming conscious. It is only after we've taken our agency for granted that we can even begin pondering causality at all, as our own causal agency is the prototype for our understanding of wider instances of causality.

[NorthCentralMass]

Osho said that there should be no word "religion" there should only be science. Science should have two sides; the outer objective world and the inner subjective world. Perhaps we could be entering a new age where this is attainable.

[HaleyMary]

Interesting thought of what if God is a creature. So, would God be a physical being or a spiritual/energy being?

[windham666]

i'd say the answer is yes. either i can trick god by doing something he did not expect ,or god is not omnipotent.

[prhughes0]

The difference between science and theology

(as legitimate areas for study and discussion)

is the difference between coitus and circle jerk.

[prhughes0]

Of course, science, doing "good", just as coitus, has produced an unsustainable explosion of human population whose end result must be (and already is) suffering of vast proportions (for humans and others). If theology can help bring human death rates into line with birth rates in some "good" way (i.e. better than murder, starvation, epidemic, etc, which will naturally take over at some point) then i will happily join the circle.

[2bsirius]

A link to John's video?

[jericomovie]

Cheers, and thank you.

I think you correctly identified the misuse of the word "ignorance." Humans are ignorant in that they do not know reality. The creator of reality, hence, could only be ignorant of his future actions if indeed his future actions were determined, and therefore knowable. Calling God "ignorant" of his own actions, it would seem, would be more appropriately replaced with "uncertain," "undecided," or something of that sort.

[jedimasterbooboo]

Yeah, that guy is awesome, I just found him because I happened to click on your channel and saw the activity stream and went there. I'm SO GLAD. Thanks for that. I feel like "finally" and I've only seen two videos.

[MaBu888]

He's the same as 0ThouArtThat0, and has videos of similar content. 0ThouArtThat0 contains more recent videos and therefore his most recent positions.

[mikehedge]

neat Matt.