Theists: How can predetermined fate and free will coexist?

[Ignorant]

Ignorant: Welcome back So, my choice isn't a choice in any real sense. I'd call this an equivocation fallacy; trying to give the indication that "free will" is still present. If I have the same amount of choice as a domino being knocked over, then I have no choice at all. [1]

Why use the word "choice"? Or "free will"? It's just taking an action. Following a script. [2] There never were any alternatives; only in hypothetical realities that God "could have made", but didn't. [3] Sure, you can call it whatever you want, but the word "choice" doesn't make it any more meaningful. Informally, of course we talk about choices, but we assume that there were real alternatives; that we chose which version of reality we followed, rather than it being picked beforehand. I suppose it's a still a compatabalist "choice", although I find that position tautological anyway. [4]

You have indeed solved the contradiction, by admitting that free will is an illusion in such a case. I'm part of a story, forced to experience it. A very strange way for a "God" to carry on in my estimation. If he could fuck off, that would be awesome.

Of course, free will may well be an illusion anyway. I'm increasingly of the opinion that it is. It seems like a woo-phrase with no scientific meaning. For some reason, it's pragmatic for our consciousness to tell itself that it is "making choices". Even when the subconscious sometimes knows better.

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Additional: the difference lies with the creator. The creator could, presumably, have given us genuine choices. He chose (haha!?) not to give us choices. That responsibility therefor lies with him, as does the outcome of all our actions.

If there is no creator but we just happen to be entirely predictable, then there's no blame to be laid, that's just how things are. We feel like we're "making choices", but really we're just self-aware chemical reactions.

Of course, some theists persist with the idea that we have genuine choices (I'm unpredictable) but God can still predict my actions. This is logically absurd, and you may as well just say "God is magic" and not try to explain any of it.

1) Why isn't it a real choice? You have more choice than a domino. Here is why:

The conditions surrounding the domino, as well as what the domino is, all contribute to the determining the manner in which it will fall. Beyond merely being-what-it-is, the domino doesn't contribute to the action of falling.

(a) The conditions surrounding a person (i.e. potential choices among a set circumstances), as well as (b) what the person is (i.e. a thing with the capacity to choose those potential choices in that set of circumstances), as well as (x) the person's choice (i.e. the potential choice the person makes actual), all contribute to determining the manner in which the person will act. Beyond merely being-what-it-is, the person contributes its choice to the action in question.

Dominoes do not act. People do.

2) I haven't said free will yet. All I have spoken about is "choice". Animals make choices, but not free ones. You are saying that choice itself is impossible given a "predetermined fate", and you seem to be saying that choice itself is an illusion. If you don't think that humans determine their actions in any real sense, then you certainly won't think that humans freely determine their actions. In other words, there is no sense trying to argue for free human determination until we agree that people can determine their actions in ANY sense.

So far, you posed the question as, "If god knows I will choose something, can I choose something else"? The answer to that question is no.

Then you say: "Then I can't choose anything at all". But that conclusion does not follow from the question and response. The only thing that follows is: "Then I certainly and absolutely WILL choose that something". That is to say: "If god knows that this action will be determined by my own personal determining ability, then that action will certainly and absolutely be determined by my own personal determining ability".

Something-about-me will contribute to the determination of me doing just that action. What is that something-about-me? We call it "choice". That isn't controversial. What is controversial is that it is free. Kind of have to agree that there is choice to begin with before we can talk about it being free or not.

3) (b:from #1) Is usually what ends up equivocated in these sorts of discussions:

Can a human being choose to walk through red doors? Blue doors? Yes, that is within people's power of choosing.
Can a human being choose to walk through a blue door at the same instant that he chooses to walk through a red door? No a person cannot choose in this way, but having chosen one of the doors does not indicate that the other choice was impossible. All it means is that the agent chose a single potential choice so as to make it actual (x).

God, on this account, chooses the door through which you will choose to walk. He chooses your choosing. He creates the potential choices, as truly potential. He creates you as having the potential to choose from them. He creates you as choosing among those potentialities.

From god's perspective, there is "no alternative" to the reality he is creating in the sense that he is creating exactly what he intends to create. He intends to create people as choosing their actions among potential actions. That can't be the case unless potential actions are on the table. Potential actions are potential ways of obtaining the various apparent goods around us. Sometimes you can seek one potential good (e.g. eating) while not seeking another potential good (e.g. sex). If you choose to seek sex instead of eating, that doesn't mean that seeking food wasn't a real option.

4) I will stop here. Yes. If we contribute to the determination of our own actions, then we call it choice. If we don't contribute to that determination, then we don't choose at all. If god determines, "before hand", that you will contribute to the determination of your own actions, I don't understand how that means you don't actually contribute to the determination of your own actions. I can understand how you might think it means freedom is an illusion, but I don't understand how you think it means you don't choose in any sense of the word.