Theists: How can predetermined fate and free will coexist?

[Asmodee]

Free will is a myth any way you slice it.

From the religious perspective, God is all-knowing.  He knew how things would turn out before he decided to set them in motion.  He knew man would eat from the tree if he just left them alone with Satan.  So he left them alone with Satan.  He knew who would be saved and who would be damned before creation.  He knew how everything would turn out before he even set it in motion.  And in the few times when they wouldn't turn out the way he wanted, he changed things.  He "hardened Pharaoh's heart" when he REALLY wanted to kill a bunch of people, to give an example.

Why do you say that God decided to do something, implying that he had free will, when you say that he knew the outcome beforehand?

Obviously from the religious perspective God is the exception to everything.  Everything that exists has to have a beginning...except God.  Every one and every thing is flawed...except God.  Nothing could have created the universe...except God.  So it stands to reason that if free will is a myth, that is true...except when it comes to God.

[Tonus]

Regarding the idea that God uses people who are 'screwed anyway' to accomplish his will, yes, I believe that is the case.

My concern with this is that using Judas in this manner was only for the purposes of convenience. There was no need to prophesize that someone would betray Jesus, and there certainly was no need to have someone lead his enemies to him. That seems capricious.

I believe that God's goal is the redemption of people and a desire for a personal relationship, and we have free will to choose such. While God does want the best possible life for you (given your free will and the free will of others), this might be supervened by the one objective that could override it--namely the accomplishing the greater purpose of the maximum number of people having a personal relationship with him. So, it could be that some event in my life would be terrible for me, but has a purpose I cannot see--or it might just be a terrible event that is the result of nothing more than natural causes, my free will and that of others.

I am thinking that if God can pluck a person out of one possible fate and into another --as with Judas-- then this also has a ripple effect. Judas life unfolds differently-- he goes to different places and meets different people and takes different actions, which have effects that change the lives of other people, whose actions then affect others, and so on. Let's assume that God is able to do this-- to change the future by affecting individual people, and that he is able to see how this changes the future for everyone. So God can arrange a future that accomplishes the goal of having the maximum number of people achieve a personal relationship with him. If that God is the God of the Bible, we see that his plans have only resulted in, at best, about a 30% success rate. Meaning that billions of people --possibly tens of billions if we take those who are no longer alive into account-- may be going to hell.

If having free will meant that more than two-thirds of humanity was going to suffer for eternity, wouldn't it have been better not to have free will?

[robvalue]

And preserve free will? How would that work? It is far from clear that that is even possible.

Well, you're already talking about God making something terrible happen. Instead, he could make something not terrible happen, which achieves the same thing.

Either way, he's screwing with "free will" just as much. He is presumably doing this stuff because other choices people have made have altered his plan and he needs to do something to knock it back on course. Or if there was only one clear plan and no deviation, there is no free will anyway.

He can't seem to decide if he wants to make people have relationships with him by screwing with them, or allowing them to choose and leaving them alone.

[John V]

Obviously from the religious perspective God is the exception to everything.  Everything that exists has to have a beginning...except God.  Every one and every thing is flawed...except God.  Nothing could have created the universe...except God.  So it stands to reason that if free will is a myth, that is true...except when it comes to God.

You're allowing a religious perspective which you oppose in order to avoid a consequence of your position which you didn't foresee and find inconvenient. Intellectual honesty is right out the window.

[robvalue]

I find it really hard to understand how people can think we're important enough for anything outside of our reality to give the slightest shit about us; as a race, let alone individually.

[SteveII]

Regarding the idea that God uses people who are 'screwed anyway' to accomplish his will, yes, I believe that is the case.

My concern with this is that using Judas in this manner was only for the purposes of convenience.  There was no need to prophesize that someone would betray Jesus, and there certainly was no need to have someone lead his enemies to him.  That seems capricious.

I don't think we have the information to say that it could have been accomplished some other way--for the same reason you articulate below...

I believe that God's goal is the redemption of people and a desire for a personal relationship, and we have free will to choose such. While God does want the best possible life for you (given your free will and the free will of others), this might be supervened by the one objective that could override it--namely the accomplishing the greater purpose of the maximum number of people having a personal relationship with him. So, it could be that some event in my life would be terrible for me, but has a purpose I cannot see--or it might just be a terrible event that is the result of nothing more than natural causes, my free will and that of others.

I am thinking that if God can pluck a person out of one possible fate and into another --as with Judas-- then this also has a ripple effect.  Judas life unfolds differently-- he goes to different places and meets different people and takes different actions, which have effects that change the lives of other people, whose actions then affect others, and so on.  Let's assume that God is able to do this-- to change the future by affecting individual people, and that he is able to see how this changes the future for everyone.  So God can arrange a future that accomplishes the goal of having the maximum number of people achieve a personal relationship with him.  If that God is the God of the Bible, we see that his plans have only resulted in, at best, about a 30% success rate.  Meaning that billions of people --possibly tens of billions if we take those who are no longer alive into account-- may be going to hell.

If having free will meant that more than two-thirds of humanity was going to suffer for eternity, wouldn't it have been better not to have free will?

I think you characterized everything correctly and your conclusion, unfortunately, is accurate. However, I think we do not have standing to say that billions of people who freely chose God was not worth the billions more that freely did not.  It is obvious that God places an extremely high value on people freely choosing him.

[Asmodee]

Obviously from the religious perspective God is the exception to everything.  Everything that exists has to have a beginning...except God.  Every one and every thing is flawed...except God.  Nothing could have created the universe...except God.  So it stands to reason that if free will is a myth, that is true...except when it comes to God.

You're allowing a religious perspective which you oppose in order to avoid a consequence of your position which you didn't foresee and find inconvenient. Intellectual honesty is right out the window.

Intellectual honesty sure is right out the window!  I wasn't "allowing" any perspective but rather looking at the notion of free will from both perspectives in a lighthearted and not very serious manor.  Don't tell anyone this, but I didn't really kill any hookers.  That was just a joke.  Hence, the "lighthearted and not very serious" bit.

[Pat Mustard]

Agreed, rob. Awesome vid btw!

I don't get how this "outside of time" idea is supposed to somehow reconcile this contradiction we have here.

It doesn't, at all. It's just obfuscation.

And thanks very much! I got plenty more where that came from

iow, I propose that all logically consistent and well defined notions of free will are compatible with determinism.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. If we're discussing hard determinism, as in everything could be predicted from the word go, then I don't see any kind of "free will" being possible, that means anything.

By "free will", I would mean that intelligent agents have a genuine choice of multiple actions, and they could actually choose any of them. If it can be predicted what the agent will do with complete accuracy, then I no longer see it as any kind of choice. It's just a sequence of causes and effects. All we have is the illusion of choice.

If you define "choice"/"free will" so that it covers no real choice at all, then it's compatible, but meaningless IMO.

It's probably impossible to say we're in a deterministic universe or not. Even if every action of everything is predetermined, the calculations are so complicated & involved that the only way to solve them is by running the universe.

[henryp]

I find it really hard to understand how people can think we're important enough for anything outside of our reality to give the slightest shit about us; as a race, let alone individually.

Maybe not you, but I'm fucking amazing.

[Asmodee]

I find it really hard to understand how people can think we're important enough for anything outside of our reality to give the slightest shit about us; as a race, let alone individually.

Maybe not you, but I'm fucking amazing.

You really are.  All the cool kids know it.