God's Freedom?

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Let's see, you seem to have wrapped a lot of nonsense around the following:

God knows all the relevant reasons.

God weighs the relevant reasons.

God perfectly rationally chooses based upon the weight of the relevant reasons.

Ultimately you seem to be arguing that choosing perfectly rationally somehow precludes free will. Thus far you've gotten nowhere in a very roundabout way.

Ultimately you seem to be arguing that choosing perfectly rationally somehow precludes free will

That's not even close. The argument purports to show that it is a certain combination of ingredients that lead to the problem: (a) the attributes of omniscience and perfect rationality, when construed as part of the very essence or definition of the agent and (b) some incompatibilist construal of free will that, minimally, requires the ability to have done otherwise for freedom.

So, your simplified redescription here is very far off the mark.

By the way, which premise(s) would you reject?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I guess--- if I have to choose the most best--- it would be (2), as it requires God to adhere to something outside of Himself.

We think in terms of duality, whereas the only dichotomy for God is what is not Him.
There is perfection and then (outside of Him) there is what agrees with Him and that which does not.

We use our faculties to adapt actions to an end; His thinking needs no adaptations.

So you would deny premise (2). Thank you.

I am not sure I really understand your basis for rejecting (2), however. If there is nothing external to God that constrains His thinking and judgments and choices, etc; then those issuances from God must be, at the end of the day, arbitrary. This is no different from the horn of the Euthyphro dilemma whereby making God the definitive source of goodness, sans any extra-God constraints, makes goodness arbitrary.

Originally posted by LemonJello

Ultimately you seem to be arguing that choosing perfectly rationally somehow precludes free will

That's not even close. The argument purports to show that it is a certain combination of ingredients that lead to the problem: (a) the attributes of omniscience and perfect rationality, when construed as part of the very essence or definitio ...[text shortened]... d redescription here is very far off the mark.

By the way, which premise(s) would you reject?

I understand what you're trying to do. What you've accomplished is another matter altogether.

Let's see if the following helps you to understand this.

Let's say an agent does not perfectly know all the relevant reasons and is not perfectly rational and similarly makes choices by weighing reasons as you've described. Would that agent have free will in it's choices?

Let's say that agent gradually becomes closer and closer to perfectly knowing all the relevant reasons and being perfectly rational. At the point the agent does perfectly know all the relevant reasons and is perfectly rational, would that agent no longer have free will in it's choices, but not at any point before?

Originally posted by LemonJello
So you would deny premise (2). Thank you.

I am not sure I really understand your basis for rejecting (2), however. If there is nothing external to God that constrains His thinking and judgments and choices, etc; then those issuances from God must be, at the end of the day, arbitrary. This is no different from the horn of the Euthyphro dilemma whereb ...[text shortened]... God the definitive source of goodness, sans any extra-God constraints, makes goodness arbitrary.

I don't have a problem with goodness being arbitrary.

Forget all of the qualifiers for a minute.
There's just life (being) and there's nothing (not being).
In eternity past (that time before angelic history, itself before human history), there was just God.

There was no room for anything else, because He hadn't created room.
Just Him.
Whatever attributes He had then, He had amongst Himself: there was no one, nothing with whom or which to share those attributes/characteristics.

In creating, He then had someone/something with whom/which to have His attributes shared.

If truth is truth on the basis of its agreement with reality, then reality is greater than truth, right?
If light is light on the basis of its agreement with the set of properties identified as light, then those properties are greater than light.

Is reality arbitrary?
Is that set arbitrary?

LemonJello,
God will not go against Himself. God will do as He wants to do.

God will choose to be what He already is. (holy and righteous)

God will do as He wants to do. (he will let people run their lives even to the point of going to the lake of fire)

In one sense, you may be right about God never choosing evil. However, it isn't God's freedom to choose that is the problem.

The problem is that we as humans have the freedom to choose right and wrong. We are the ones who have the freedom to do what we want to do. It is our choice to reject God's way of salvation.

God's lack of freedom doesn't matter for your eternal life. But your choice to receive or reject God's salvation is crucial to consider.

You have the freedom to put faith in Christ or reject Christ. You are the one who will die in your sins or live with eternal life according to the bible.

Focusing on God's freedom level will not help you in "your choice" unless you want to depend on God.

King James Version
==============
Malachi 3: 6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I understand what you're trying to do. What you've accomplished is another matter altogether.

Let's see if the following helps you to understand this.

Let's say an agent does not perfectly know all the relevant reasons and is not perfectly rational and similarly makes choices by weighing reasons as you've described. Would that agent have free wil ...[text shortened]... ational, would that agent no longer have free will in it's choices, but not at any point before?

And I understand what you are trying to do. You're too proud or stubborn to admit that you sloppily redescribed the argument in grotesque fashion, and now you're attempting some irrelevant diversion. Anyone with marginal reading capabilities can see that the argument does not ultimately purport to show "that choosing perfectly rationally somehow precludes free will". We all know your reading capabilities are at least marginal. So if you persist in distorting the argument despite being made aware of the distortion; then your posts will not end up saying much about the argument but may end up saying something about you.

At any rate, if the argument is so clearly flawed, then it should not be so hard for you to simply state which premise(s) you reject and why.

Regarding the quasi-sorites-paradox diversion, the argument does not concern it. For the last time, the argument concerns a case in which omniscience and perfect rationality is putatively built into the very definition of the agent.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I don't have a problem with goodness being arbitrary.

Forget all of the qualifiers for a minute.
There's just life (being) and there's nothing (not being).
In eternity past (that time before angelic history, itself before human history), there was just God.

There was no room for anything else, because He hadn't created room.
Just Him.
What ...[text shortened]... , then those properties are greater than light.

Is reality arbitrary?
Is that set arbitrary?

I don't have a problem with goodness being arbitrary.

So if your view implies that goodness is arbitrary, that does not concern you? Relatedly, if your view implies that God's mental issuances are arbitrary, that does not concern you?

I do not really understand your questions or what points you are trying to make with the rest. How does any of it tie into your basis for denying premise (2)?

Originally posted by KingOnPoint
LemonJello,
God will not go against Himself. God will do as He wants to do.

God will choose to be what He already is. (holy and righteous)

God will do as He wants to do. (he will let people run their lives even to the point of going to the lake of fire)

In one sense, you may be right about God never choosing evil. However, it isn't God's fr ...[text shortened]...
Malachi 3: 6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

So in one sense I am right; but in another sense I am not? Which sense is contextually relevant? I do not understand what point you are trying to make as it relates specifically to the opening argument. Would you deny any premises of the argument? If so, which one(s) and why?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[If I am free to choose between Jill and Julie which one I will love, if I chose to love Jill, am I also free to love Julie?[/b]

For the record, I'm partial to both Jill and Julie. 😛

Originally posted by LemonJello

I don't have a problem with goodness being arbitrary.

So if your view implies that goodness is arbitrary, that does not concern you? Relatedly, if your view implies that God's mental issuances are arbitrary, that does not concern you?

I do not really understand your questions or what points you are trying to make with the rest. How does any of it tie into your basis for denying premise (2)?

There is a connotation of negative as it pertains to the adjective arbitrary, which wasn't part of the origin of the word.
Originally, it simply meant "deciding by one's own discretion," and/or "depending on the will/uncertain."
We get the word from arbiter which we still to describe the George Bush-ism 'decider' or judge.
Yet it eventually evolved to denote a subjective and capricious meaning, as it was dependent upon the whim of the one so doling it (whatever it is) out, with an unspoken understanding how the will of most is corrupt and therefore unreliable.

Standing before power (for most people) has never been a first choice.
What if the king is hungry?
What if he's in a sour mood?
What if he didn't get any last night?
What if my appearance repulses him?

We don't see such vagaries with God, however, so having my fate in His hands doesn't cause me qualm: I know He rules according to the standards of His virtue and His virtue is above all others.

I do not really understand your questions or what points you are trying to make with the rest. How does any of it tie into your basis for denying premise (2)?
It's like you're looking for something outside of God to define God, when we use the descriptors of God to tell us what He's like.
Using light as an example, do you consider light to be arbitrary--- since to be light it must follow certain rules?

Originally posted by whodey
For the record, I'm partial to both Jill and Julie. 😛

Just so long as the twain never meet!

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Just so long as the twain never meet!

Killjoy! 😠

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
There is a connotation of negative as it pertains to the adjective arbitrary, which wasn't part of the origin of the word.
Originally, it simply meant "deciding by one's own discretion," and/or "depending on the will/uncertain."
We get the word from arbiter which we still to describe the George Bush-ism 'decider' or judge.
Yet it eventuall ...[text shortened]... xample, do you consider light to be arbitrary--- since to be light it must follow certain rules?

There are two interrelated, relevant senses of the term 'arbitrary' here, both of which apply to your view. The first sense has to do with being grounded constitutively in subjectivity, dependent solely on personal discretion in the absence of any external law; the second has to do with being divorced from reasons, or based on no reasons. In both senses the term properly applies to your view on, say, goodness, since you ground it constitutively in the subjectivity of God, absent any external constraints or reasons. You seem to acknowledge all this, but you appear flummoxed as to why this would be concerning for you.

The main reason why you should be concerned about this has to do with the fact that arbitrary things cannot undergird any actual legitimate authority. For example, on your view, God's judgments are arbitrary, since they are not bound by external reasons. Well, then, why should any rational agents like us care about them? In what sense could we be obligated to respect them? In and of themselves, we should not care about them, and there is no sense in which we could be so obligated. That's because they are arbitrary, not constrained by any reasons. Ultimately, you can provide only prudential reasons in order to bind an agent by arbitrary things. For example, if you do not (do) respect God's arbitrary judgments and wishes, He will punish (reward) you in the full glory of His awesome power! This provides absolutely no reasons to respect His arbitrary mental issuances in their own right and they remain just as arbitrary as before; it is rather just an abuse of power that overrides.

Point is, arbitrary things cannot establish legitimate authority. The ironic and funny thing is that you already understand this. If I told you that matters of goodness were settled solely at the personal discretion of your nextdoor neighbor, you would laugh. And, in fact, not having things like goodness be just a matter of personal taste and opinion is an oft-cited motivation that theists give for placing such things outside of the human realm. So where do there ultimately place them? Well, in a non-human person, of course. 🙄 Talk about irony. And now it's even worse as to the point of establishing any actual authority. The simple fact is that any rational being would have more reason to take seriously the mental issuances of his nextdoor neighbor than those of the God you describe. That's because at least the neighbor's would be based on and constrained by external reasons to at least some extent; whereas your God's apparently are not. Again, the only authority of God you can establish on your view is an illegitimate sort, based on prudential reasons to tremble in one's boots.

This is one reason why your view is so bizarrely dissonant. You acknowledge that arbitrarity cannot establish legitimate authority in everyday matters; and yet somehow you do not see the concern with making more or less everything constitutively dependent on arbitrarity, as long as you dress it up in God-terms. Perhaps you have not received the memo that a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

Originally posted by LemonJello
There are two interrelated, relevant senses of the term 'arbitrary' here, both of which apply to your view. The first sense has to do with being grounded constitutively in subjectivity, dependent solely on personal discretion in the absence of any external law; the second has to do with being divorced from reasons, or based on no reasons. In both sense ...[text shortened]... p in God-terms. Perhaps you have not received the memo that a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

Wasn't it at about this point when God said to Job, "Who are you to question me?" Or words (many more) to that effect?

Originally posted by LemonJello
There are two interrelated, relevant senses of the term 'arbitrary' here, both of which apply to your view. The first sense has to do with being grounded constitutively in subjectivity, dependent solely on personal discretion in the absence of any external law; the second has to do with being divorced from reasons, or based on no reasons. In both sense ...[text shortened]... p in God-terms. Perhaps you have not received the memo that a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

Hmmmm...

Let's start with my neighbor.
If my neighbor were elected Final Arbiter of All Things Good, the reason I (and others) would reject the title/position is because we know that--- at best--- my neighbor could only be a mouthpiece for ATG.
Why?
• Neighbor exists on the same plane as all other humans
• Neighbor was born into that plane in order to gain existence
• Neighbor will exit that plane at some point
• Neighbor suffers from the same plight which plagues all others on the plane: subjectivity

Neighbor's only qualifications for rising to the position as mouthpiece would be his ability to both know what constitutes goodness and keep his subjectivity/bias in check.

Even if we were to back it off a notch or three and position neighbor as the Final Arbiter of All Things Moral, most of us would reject him on pretty much the same merits--- one of the reasons we have multiple judges on the bench for the Supreme Court instead of simply one.

In some ways, morality is more complex than goodness... especially on this planet.
[By way of example, consider the thread I posted this morning entitled "Is this Good?"]
But we could let the neighbor act as the mouthpiece for ATM, provided he were able to show consistency in the areas mentioned for ATG.
Why?
Because he has demonstrated that he understands the rules and how to apply them.

Yet if any standard has ever been arbitrary, surely morality is that standard: it constantly switches and changes, yielding to the whims of the majority--- sometimes right and sometimes wrong--- and nearly ALWAYS in retrospect.
Morality is to good what a timed event is to time.
The only ultimate standard we have is the one we are currently agreeing to; beyond that, no one really knows what time it is.

The fact of the matter is, without man there is no morality.
If truth is based upon reality--- is agreement with reality--- then reality is the final standard... unless there exists something upon which reality rests.

You have no problem with the concept that truth is dependent upon reality, so why would you blanch at something being the final standard?