RobE
New member
ApologeticJedi said:What someone wants is too flimsy for a definition. Desires can be changed. Someone could be hyponotised to believe they love someone else and we would hardly call that free will.
No hypnotism would be a form of coercion.
Conversely, someone could have the oppertunity to do what they don't really want to do, but rationalize, or flippantly decided to do, and that could be free will. So I think there is something missing from your definition of free will.
Not really because if you rationalize(decide) or flippantly decided then it was your decision and free. Unlike the case of being hypnotized.
My chosen definition of 'free'(since we all agree on what the term 'will' means) is that it must be unhindered or coerced in any way. The term 'free' does not equate to Clete's definition which is 'choice'. Clete maintains you must have a choice to be free; whereas, I maintain you only must not be coerced to be free; and, even if you truly have only one choice your freedom exists as is the case with simple foresight. It's expressed like this ....."You will choose to do as you wish."
AJ said:If God knew he was going to heal him, then it wouldn't be changing the future to do so.
True. I hadn't considered this when I posted my response. You're right because what God knows will happen is the future.
AJ said:The only way we can say God has control over his own destiny is to say that God is powerful enough to affect real change on the future such that He knew the man will die tomorrow, but changed what he knew as certainty by healing him and changing the future.
I believe God can do this. You deny God this ability.
Not at all! I only deny that man has this ability. God is more than capable of changing the future. In fact, I would say that He is the only one who would even know it was changed, since He's the only one who knew what it was beforehand.
Augustine would agree:
From Augustine's Confessions, pp 78,79:
For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? ... Thou lovest, and burnest not; art jealous, yet free from care; repentest, and hast no sorrow; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy ways, leaving unchanged Thy plans; recoverest what Thou findest, having yet never lost; art never in want, whilst Thou rejoicest in gain; never covetous, though requiring usury ...
For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? ... Thou lovest, and burnest not; art jealous, yet free from care; repentest, and hast no sorrow; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy ways, leaving unchanged Thy plans; recoverest what Thou findest, having yet never lost; art never in want, whilst Thou rejoicest in gain; never covetous, though requiring usury ...
At this point you might ask me this.....If God changes the future then He really didn't have exhaustive foreknowledge did He? I would answer that..... He did and changed what He exhaustively foreknew which doesn't mean He changed His plans in any way.
It's much like Open Theism's declaration that God is omnicapable of bringing His plans about without foreknowledge. My position is that His capabilities are diminished greatly if He is unable to figure out what you or any free agent will actually do. Especially when you take into accout 6+ Billion free agents. Conversely if He is able to figure out what those free agents will do then He has foreknowledge by definition.
Thanks,
Rob