(April 23, 2017 at 7:11 am)SteveII Wrote: Regarding whether it is impossible for people to always choose good, you have to distinguish between broadly logical possible and actually possible (logical modality). A world where everyone chooses good is broadly logically possible--logic alone cannot rule it out. But clearly, additional criteria/information is needed to determine if it is actually possible. I think it is entirely more likely than the negation that trillions of sequential, interacting, human choices cannot all be good.
I am not making the argument that it is actually possible for humans to choose good every single time. I only want to know if you can demonstrate that it's not actually possible. Surely, there is a burden on your part to demonstrate the impossibility if that's what you were claiming earlier. But now that I reread an earlier response of yours, it seems like you were never confident that it's actually impossible, only that you think it is. Either way, if an atheist were to mount the objection that it may be actually possible for all humans to do good all the time (and therefore God could've created a better world than this, whereby all humans choose good all the time), then you cannot just dismiss the objection by placing a burden of proof on the atheist; you have to counter the objection with an argument that shows why it's actually impossible for all humans to choose good all the time. Otherwise, you have to concede the validity of the objection.
Quote:What is your basis for believing determinism/compatiblism to be true? Isn't just the prior assumption of Naturalism--which is clearly question begging?
No, the basis has to do with the logical incoherency of the concept of libertarian free will. You can't logically choose without prior factors determining/influencing your choices. If there are no such factors involved in a choice you make, then it's not really a choice on your part, rather it's just a random selection. You cannot call that free will.
