Originally posted by googlefudge
Interesting, I usually hear it put the reverse, we have free will in the sense we are responsible for the actions we take.
We have the autonomy to make decisions and face the consequences.
That doesn't negate what I said. Most people I talk to from across the table (debate with, i.e. non-Christians, skeptics, etc.) think of freewill as the ability to do anything you choose (that you are capable of) without coercion or boundary other than the laws we impose on ourselves. That's autonomy, i.e. mankind is a law unto itself. Autonomy doesn't mean no consequences. It means no boundaries have been set by a higher power and no coercion takes place by a higher power. Christians do not believe in this. To the Christian, God coerces us in a major way, by the use of grace and the "Holy Spirit." We may be free to make choices, but we are coerced through His grace into making certain key decisions.
If we had no free will in that sense we would not be responsible for any crimes we committed, as we wouldn't have the ability to not commit the crime. In the same way a computer program does what it was instructed to do and doesn't have any choice as to the outcome.
Right. From the Christian perspective, God doesn't give us complete and total free will, but He also doesn't restrict it to the degree that we are forced to love Him or abide by His mandates.
In that instance if a computer program does something harmful, you blame the person who wrote the program, not the program itself.
True. Keeping the Christian perspective going and not being sure whether you are making reference to programs as people and the programmer as God, it's different because we are sentient beings capable of gathering data and making our own decisions. We aren't robots.
However, I can't resist the temptation to continue with the concept of God as Master Programmer because that is exactly what I think He is. He "spoke" everything into existence. Computer language? He "fashioned all the planets..." really? Did He really get a hammer and chisel out and make them all by hand, or, are they part of a programmed holographic universe? A facade?
Just thinking outloud... not preaching or pretending to know any secret truths.
I hope you don't mind. It's my fault but I just blew this conversation up into a huge thing and now I'm running low on time. I'm working from home between posts. So I'm going to skip down if you don't take too much offense.
I would have to disagree with this position.
The fact that we have boundaries on our freedoms does not remove the fact we have freedoms or free will.
AMEN! Wow, that is a very, VERY refreshing thought to come from a non-Christian (I don't know what to call you and I don't mean that in a demeaning way)! When Christians delve deeply into the very meaning of all this and study God's word, they/we must conclude that God has indeed established certain controls and does practice coercion on a certain level. We can either fight it and deny it, or be ok with it and enjoy the fact that other than a few certain things, we do have complete free will.
In reading the bible, particularly but not exclusively the New Covenant, we cannot help but understand that this is all about God and it's all up to God. God graces those whom He graces and doesn't grace others. Ultimately it's all on Him, and everything good and bad goes to His credit. These conclusions lead us away from a "I have total free will" conclusion to a "I have the will to choose most things but God will do the choosing when it comes to grace" conclusion. Again, we can either be comfortable with that (and I wouldn't expect a single non-Christian to be comfortable with it) or we can deny it. But it's in the book.
04 Oct '11 02:111 edit
No options.
Back to Top