Paganism vs. Monotheism

[Mudhammam]

You are sounding too much like Mother Teresa and her evil love of suffering, believing it is good for people to suffer, for me to be inclined to express my true feelings regarding your claims.  Do you really believe that suffering is good?  If you do, perhaps we should meet and you should let me torture you for a while and let you ponder how good that is.  If you refuse that, I will take it that you do not believe that suffering is good at all and are just saying nonsense.

Perhaps I could let you give me a hardy flogging, while you hurl vicious insults and encourage your friends to strike and spit upon my face; then you could pierce my head with a crown of thorns and nail my flesh into two beams of wood, watching as I struggle for hours to expire and when I finally do, its through suffocating under my own weight. And when just before I surrender myself to the grave, I, in my Stoic resignation, cry out, "I forgive you!" then perhaps you shall discover something supremely good, unbeknownst before: that divine will to love thine enemy, that trait which amongst all animals appears to be peculiarly human, all too human! ;-)

In all seriousness, I take your point. It seems to me to be the very definition of improbable - and the obstacle theists cannot overcome - to propose that there is not one single instance of suffering that lacks any redeeming quality or purpose; contrarily, if all such actual and possible evil does in some sense "work for good for those who love God," then the problem has, rather than been solved, simply been denied. Evil must be viewed, according to the "blessed," as a necessary supplement to the greatest possible good, and therefore not really evil at all.

I think that is going to get us into a very troublesome discussion of the nature of free will and whether or not we should be soft determinists instead of going with the 'libertarian free will' or 'hard determinist' view of things.  

Just FYI, I am, after thinking about it all for a while, a soft determinist in the sense that I do not see "free will," as commonly used in practical matters (e.g., courts of law), as conflicting with determinism.  But if you imagine something else, by all means, demonstrate this magical "free will," or give reasons to believe in it.

I don't see how a legal definition of "free will" imposes on, or resolves, the philosophical conclusions any deteminist - hard or soft - must appear to confess: freedom to choose right or wrong, i.e. the moral quality attached to such freedom, is entirely illusory. If you claim that these contentious notions - free will, determinism, and moral responsibility - are compatible, I think it's likewise incumbent on you to explain how and why this could be so, also without appeal to magic.

Here's an interesting argument for human freedom I was recently offered, which is a formalization of Sartre:
1. For a state of affairs to cause human action, the causal efficacy of said state of affairs must come only from the characteristics of the state of affairs itself.
2. A state of affairs has no meaning in itself.
3. If a state of affairs has no meaning in itself, its meaning must be given to it by someone experiencing it.
4. The meaning of a state of affairs must be given to it by someone experiencing it. (MP on 2 & 3)
5. The meaning of a state of affairs is what motivates our actions.
6. If the meaning of a state of affairs is what motivates our actions, then (for human actions) the causal efficacy of said state of affairs does not come only from characteristics of the state of affairs itself.
7. (For human actions) the causal efficacy of a state of affairs does not come only from characteristics of the state of affairs itself. (MP on 5 & 6)
8. No state of affairs can, by itself, cause human action. (MT on 1 & 7)
9. If no state of affairs can, by itself, cause human action, then human action is free.
10. Human action is free. (MP on 8 & 9)

What is your take on that?