The free will argument demonstrates that christians don't understand free will.

[Esquilax]

Free will is often trotted out by christians as a response to too many theistic problems to mention, but often the way in which it is used displays a complete lack of comprehension of how free will works, even within the bounds of the argument the theist is making.

God allows evil, the theist says, because without doing so we wouldn't have free will! But this argument seems to have curiously limited applications; if the theist wanted to, say, go swimming, but found themselves in the middle of the desert, would they complain that their free will is being impinged upon? No, that would be madness, and the theist would most likely simply recognize that they aren't in a position to do whatever they want at any time. But the premises of the free will argument can be slotted just as easily around "going swimming," as they can around "doing evil." They're both actions, and they both are only possible or not possible, according to christianity, because god allows them by keeping them conceptually open and creating the attendant physical forms and forces that make them happen, and yet our free will is only curtailed by the removal of moral actions, and not aquatic ones?

God doesn't allow you to swim in the desert and your free will is fine, but if he doesn't allow you to drown a person your free will is compromised?

Besides, we already live in a world where, under the premises of christianity, our free will is restricted; god created the physical universe and made conscious decisions as to the physical laws of it, after all. That's something he did without needing to, but the free will excuse submits that subtracting one more set of actions from the pot irreparably damages our freedom in some way that the theist refuses to elaborate on. Why is that so?

Perhaps we might draw a distinction between moral thought and moral action, but that doesn't resolve the issue either, given how much the christian god and religion concerns itself with thought crime to begin with. If our beliefs alone can convict us then clearly the actions don't matter to god; if I can commit adultery merely by looking at a woman lustfully then what use is physical adultery in that scenario? In that case god could curtail every evil moral action and still maintain his metric for who goes to heaven or hell, and in the process cut out a huge amount of suffering from the world. After all, our free will isn't dependent on succeeding at every act we attempt, anyway; if I fail at something, my free will hasn't been imposed upon, I just wasn't successful in my attempt.

Is this just missing the point, or do they really not get it?

[Chad32]

I don't really understand this whole free will thing either. I recently talking to a new poster about it, asking if we have free will in heaven, despite that we can't sin. Apparently we still do, but we just choose not to. Still, I don't understand why that can't happen down here too.

It's just a way to absolve their god of negative issues. Like trying to ignore the old testament, aside from the ten commandments and the verses against homosexuality, despite that the old testament takes up two thirds of the bible and is the first impression we get of this god. If Jesus came and said he was making changes, I would expect some apologizing to take place on top of saying we're supposed to love our enemies now.

[Tonus]

"Free will" is one of those terms that you can get a lot of different definitions and interpretations for. It seems to me that the concept was developed specifically to deal with the problem of god creating evil. If we can blame the existence of evil on something/someone else, then god remains perfect and good. Thus, those who misuse free will are responsible for evil. Then there had to be an explanation for why, if free will brought so much suffering into the world (including that of god himself), did god provide angels and humans with it? That explanation seems to have created some complications down the line regarding the future in either heaven or paradise, but it's not as if Christians aren't used to complicated and wild explanations and rationalizations for the stuff they believe.

[Faith No More]

I like to take it one step further and say that, given an omnipotent, omniscient god, suffering can only exist for suffering's sake. Anything the theist claims is accomplished by allowing free will could easily have been done without allowing suffering, so the only option is that god derives some value from the suffering itself.

[Anomalocaris]

When Christians were burning heretics at the stake, apparently the free will of the heretics, allegedly bequeathed by god himself, is of no importance to Christians.

When Christians imagined they might be told not to lie to their children about how life came not from god, all of their free will is sacred because it was bequeathed by the very nonexistent god himself and therefore must not be infringed upon.

[Chad32]

Also of course there's the story of the egyptian pharoah who was forced into saying no to Moses, so Yahweh could continue the plague. Up to and including killing innocent children.

[RobbyPants]

I don't really understand this whole free will thing either. I recently talking to a new poster about it, asking if we have free will in heaven, despite that we can't sin. Apparently we still do, but we just choose not to. Still, I don't understand why that can't happen down here too.

It's just a way to absolve their god of negative issues. Like trying to ignore the old testament, aside from the ten commandments and the verses against homosexuality, despite that the old testament takes up two thirds of the bible and is the first impression we get of this god. If Jesus came and said he was making changes, I would expect some apologizing to take place on top of saying we're supposed to love our enemies now.

Exactly. They believe a world without sin is possible and can be enjoyed, yet they insist that we have to be able to hurt each other here because of free will. Some think we need to earn our way into heaven (why? It's arbitrary) or that we need to be able to hurt each other to show we love God (because he couldn't know that unless we could hurt each other, for some reason).

So, the entire argument becomes "God can make a world without suffering but he doesn't because we either need to arbitrarily earn our right not to suffer or because we need to show we're not sadists so God knows we really love him.". It's just friggin weird and incomprehensible.

Also of course there's the story of the egyptian pharoah who was forced into saying no to Moses, so Yahweh could continue the plague. Up to and including killing innocent children.

Yeah, the "best" answer I've heard regarding that is "it's a bad translation, and God wasn't affecting anyone's free will, because I believe God would never do that".

[Chad32]

I'd be careful of saying you need to earn your way into heaven, as some christians are very against that. Jesus does say faith without works won't cut it, but there's also a verse saying good works are like filthy rags to god. Faith is more important than works, which is why I worry that people like Hitler are actually in heaven. I would think that good works would trump anything else, but it's harder to get people to convert if you tell them that being a good person gets you into heaven more than anything else. It also devalues Jesus' death.

I've heard older translations say that Ra hardened his heart, but since they didn't want to say definitively that other gods really exist, it was changed to Yahweh doing it. That's the best explanation I've heard, though not in sunday school class.

[Little lunch]

It has been argued that there is no free will, just the illusion. It is impossible to prove whether it exists or not. Just like god.
Personally, I don't believe in either.

[MindForgedManacle]

Not quite Esq. Theists (or at least Christian and Muslim theists) say that the reason God had to allow for evil was because unless one can legitimately choose to do good, it is not moral. Put more clearly, they're saying that if one's actions are determined, morality looses all meaning. Hence, if God wanted a universe with actual moral goodness in it, it must necessarily allow for the agents to choose to do evil too. In other words, they're claiming a specific kind of free will - called libertarian free will - is needed for morality.


There are problems with this I think, but we should be clear on what they're saying first. :p