The Philosophical Question

[Vance]

How can free will coexist with divine preordination?


I'm reading this book, Mere Christianity and it hits me. I honestly don't have any opinion, thought or perspective to answer this question. Anyone?

 

[gnarlydorkette]

Maybe if you elaborate on what the book is covering. 14 people have read your thread but didn't reply-- maybe they don't know what do you mean by "divine preordination"?

Basically you are questioning the possibilty of free-will especially in the belief system that advocates "divine preordination" which basically means your life is already outlined for a holy purpose (e.g. Jesus was born to be God's son and people's Savior and he would have to die at age 33, and so on)...

I remembered I did read something about free-will in my Phil 101 so bear with my fundamental knowledge of this subject... :-/ Sorry 'Gatsu...

I think free-will still exist in such a system that is ruled by fate... You can choose to accept your fate or challenge it. But of course, it is only if you know your fate beforehand. I haven't read the Bible, but I am sure Jesus was told of his fate-- yet he still continued his pathway and knew the consquence for him-- he accepted his fate.

Now, now don't drop your jaw and faint just because I talked about Jesus without pointing out the gaps in that belief system. I am just giving you an example to ... provoke some replies and hopefully add interest to this thread.

 

[Vance]

Understandable but actually, it is not from book that I have been reading. It just hit me out of blue when I'm reading the book. From what I understand that God (I know you don't believe in God but allow me amuse you a bit) gave us the free will and yet some fundamentalist Christians claimed that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity. So how can free will coexist with divine preordination when God has foreordained every event throughout eternity? Hence my question in my first post.

Gnarly, speaking of fate, I must admit that I personally believe in fate and karma but sometimes I wonder if we ever have our free will to make some decisions or is it just fate and karma's fickle 'chess' games?

 

[gnarlydorkette]

From what I understand that God (I know you don't believe in God but allow me amuse you a bit) gave us the free will and yet some fundamentalist Christians claimed that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity. So how can free will coexist with divine preordination when God has foreordained every event throughout eternity?

Well... I don't want to be too blunt but-- that fundamentalist Christian is a mortal man, right? How can he, a mere mortal, know anything about the immortal God's plans for them? Didn't the Bible mention about God giving you the ability free-will to think for yourself?? I am pretty sure I read somewhere that God gave humans the ability to think so they can make their own choices... right? [biting on her fingernails for being Bible dummy]...

Where is Reba when you need her?!



(digging up for her Philosophy textbook) I know by keeping the book is going to serve me good someday!

Aha-- well I found something that is not God-related (something different to spice up this thread!), somebody argued that "everything in the universe is govered by rigid laws of causality. These laws ensure that everything that happens has to happen. Therefore, no one is responsible for his or her actions"...

This was suggested by lawyer Clarence Darrow, on May 21, 1924, who tried to prove that his clients, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, were innocent in their murder sprees-- stated that they were not responsible for their "predictable" actions. Both men were brilliant and rich (just graduated from universities) yet they decided to brutally murder a 14-yr-old, inspired by mobster black-and-white films popular back in the roaring 20s. Darrow stated that those men's "murderous acts" were caused by their heredity and the way they were raised. Darrow claimed that the men shouldn't be "made responsible for the acts of someone else..." ... Darrow could say that God made these men murdering a 14-yr-old... Let it be the karma, etc but Darrow tried his best to convince that the men weren't acting of their free-will...
This viewpoint is called Determinisim-- there is no freedom for us. Ever event has prior conditions that cause it so each event is at least theorectically predictable...

We may think there are freedom for us to actl but it was an illusion for us resulting by us ignoring the original and fundamental laws that rules our lives--

But what and where is the FIRST cause? How does a series of events start off? The religious people will say that God is the first cause since he is the "alpha" and "omega"... but is it a sin if you are blaming God for the murder? Contradictory, yes because I am pointing out God's flaws (a big NO-NO) and imply that He is not a Perfect Being (Descartes' argument that a Perfect Being does exist because our good qualities reflect it)... but this is one of many conflicting evidences with the theory speculating that there are no free-will. If there are no free-will, then do you mean everybody who are victims deserve to be victims??

"The saint should no more be praised than the criminal should be punished." You cannot praise the saint because he didn't choose to do the miracles... it is somebody's doing.

What do you think? Is it possible to have no free-will because God made you who you are and decided your actions? Is it only applicable for the good people? Or is it a flawed plan for divine preordination?




(On a side note-- I am already biased but I think I did a good job of being objective in this argument... I have read Satre and I agreed mostly his theory and I feel it is applicable for me more than the fact that we have no free-will. That just irks me because if I know my fate *EXAMPLE* to be a lonely person, and I cannot do anything about it whatsoever, then why bother keeping on living to that end? Hell, call me an optimist if I want to believe that I can DO somethign with my future and am in control of my own destiny...!)

 

[gnarlydorkette]

As for God making people homosexual (or bisexual ) - God makes people who worship satan - he makes people who kill babies, commit mass genocide, enslave entire countries, rape little girls (and boys).. the list goes on and on. The point here is that one of God's gifts is Choice. Free will. Just because alot of people are one way doesnt make it not a sin

I quoted him from this post...

Based on his posts in that thread, I assumed he is a Christian... and he said we do have free-will... hmm. Maybe he is a Deist Christian??

Does the Christianity promote the divine preordination? I am not experienced in this area, but I am not sure if most churches do preach about how we should leave our trust left in God's hands... after all many pray for God's help so maybe they believe in the divine preordination? That there is a reason for God's desicions and nobody should question his agenda, et cetera.. that is the main agenda for many churches, correct?

(I only went to a church in my entire life by my free-will and they kicked me out because I was too bawdy and asked too many questions. I was only nine years old. Imagine.)

 

[The Heretic]

Well...

.... and it hits me. I honestly don't have any opinion, thought or perspective to answer this question. Anyone?

If the question hit you, then you must have had some kind of pre-existing belief you held before you read the book. That way, the question made an impact upon you. The same way reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra made an impact on me, that something could be very deep, and yet be pure poetry.

One way to solve the apparent contradiction between free will and predenstination is that we do not have perfect knowledge, so our actions at our level of existence is free, that we can recognize the choices available to us at the moment of truth, while God, existing "outside" (never mind the illogic here) of space and time, with absolutely perfect knowledge, knows what happens in the future, at all times. It is impossible, for humans, to conceive anything "above" or "beyond" time, because all our experiences are already conditioned by being "in" time. :fruit:

Try and come up with a counterexample of an experience that doesn't have spatial or temporal properties, and you'll see what i mean.