Theists: How can predetermined fate and free will coexist?

[RoadRunner79]

I think that I would fall along the lines of the comments of Alex K.

When I look at the arguments given against free will given (in the libertarian free will sense), and the knowledge violates free will. I ask, how can something which is completely external and if there is no other interference effect one's free will? This to me, would suggest that free will is dependent on things outside of the subject, or at least not dependent on the subject (including ones will). While this may be maximizing the modifier "free", I feel that it diminishes the object in the phrase "will". This would also mean that the past has no free will. After you made the choice, you cannot go back and change it. Was your choice still free will?

The term "free will" can have a number of different meanings and understandings. I would fall more into the compatibilist view, in that I think free will means that we are capable of conscience choice, for which we alone are responsible for. With this, I do not see where there is any conflict with the result of our choice being known beforehand.

[Tonus]

1) Yes. Our hearts "feel" the pain of others. So in an abstract sense, we "suffer with" them when we are compassionate.

What I meant is that our ability to empathize means that we can relate to the suffering of others even if we do not share it. In your example re:Syria, I may decide to travel there to help out and I may be moved by what I see, but my desire to help was triggered by empathy even though I was seeing their plight through a very narrow lens and from a much more comfortable perspective. I didn't have to suffer with them in order to be moved to help them.

3) Like you said before, the image of god means the ability to empathize and be compassionate.

But this implies that the ordeal he went through wasn't necessary.

We can look at Jesus on the cross and see the reality of God's being so close to humanity that he even suffers what humanity suffers. In other words, how can we know that god is compassionate and merciful toward humanity?

If he were to immediately eliminate all pain and suffering, I would know that he was compassionate and merciful.

5) That's the thing. He did do something about it, right there and then. He rose from the dead.

But that's something that separates him from those of us made in his image. See, it's not just that God could easily fix things in a second with a wave of his hand. It's what his time as Jesus represents if we simply shift the perspective slightly. Imagine that God has become frustrated. His creation --both heavenly and earthly-- rebels against him and ruins his initial set up for humanity on Earth. He strips perfection from them and watches as they continue to do what is wrong and hurt one another and follow false gods and so on. So he masquerades as a human for a short time and lives a perfect life as if to mock humanity by showing them how easy it is. He arranges for a brutal and savage experience of torture that ends with his execution... only to return three days later, refreshed and ready to return to his role as the most powerful being in all of existence.

He is eternal. Thirty-three years isn't even the blink of an eye for him, much less three days of suffering that ends with him becoming God again and able to visit the most horrific torments on the people who hurt his temporary physical body. And they're going to suffer forever. God is different from us in every possible way. How would such a small sample make any difference in what he could do for us if he was truly compassionate? Why would he have to experience all of the suffering that ever happened in order to decide that imperfect humans were in a really bad state? And why go through any of that in order to fix it?

8) Well that is the thing. God united humanity to "his super-brain". He CAN empathize and sympathize BOTH as God AND as human. As many of the church fathers were fond of saying: God became man so that man might become like god. God became human to suffer with humanity, so that humanity could enjoy divinity with god.

Would I really be getting a share of his divinity? I might end up as an eternal soul in heaven, but that's about where the similarities would end, isn't it? I think it's the mormons who claim that after death each of us gets a planet of our own to fiddle with. That strikes me as an example of God becoming man so that I could become a god. Otherwise it seems pretty lopsided, and I think we'd all have been happier if God had just fixed things when they first went wrong.

[Angrboda]

I don't see how any of this solves the problem.  If Judas has/had libertarian free will, there is no counterfactual which would cover the situation as there is no knowledge of an event with more than one possible outcome given the context.  Saying that Judas' choice was weakly actualized depends upon his choices being determined by the combination of his character and his circumstance.  That's not libertarian free will no matter how you slice it.

Molinists say the logical ordering of events for creation would be as follows:

1. God's natural knowledge of necessary truths.
2. God's middle knowledge, (including counterfactuals).
---Creation of the World---
3. God's free knowledge (the actual ontology of the world).

So, at step 2, the counterfactual "if Judas was in circumstance C, he would freely do A", can be true or false only if that statement is determinate in the sense that C is fully specified. Being fully specified is not the same as being causally determined. Because of the ordering of God's knowledge (1-3), at step 2 there will be an unimaginable number of counterfactuals that will have truth value that will never be actualized.

Your response doesn't in any way answer my objection. Judas' actions must be determined in order for there to be a counterfactual for God to know. But if his actions are determined, he doesn't have libertarian free will. You can't have both, knowable counterfactuals and libertarian free will.

[robvalue]

Still no counters to my envelope scenario.

(I put an envelope in your pocket, containing a note that you will go through the red door, although you haven't seen it. I know this is true, because I have precognition. Can you choose to go through the blue door?)

God creating reality, knowing every detail of what will happen the instant he creates it, is akin to him writing a very complicated story. He writes every word. He writes every murder, rape, AIDS baby and hurricane. He could have changed any of those details so that something else happens at that precise time, since he has an infinite numbers of scenarios to choose from and he has no boundaries (so we're usually told).

In this story he decides to write, for some reason he thinks making some elements of it self aware is a good idea. Let some poor bastards endure all the rape, murder, hunger and tragedy. Sure, they get to enjoy some good times too. But that doesn't justify all the bad stuff he's choosing to write in. He knows the bad stuff will happen. He could have missed every and any single instance of it out. But he didn't. Sadist.

You contradict yourself with this position. If God predetermined our every thought and action, then there is no "self" that is aware.

Put another way - I think, therefore I am. If God has predetermined my every thought, then I don't think, and I am not.

Many people do state that God has predetermined every thought. You might not.

You can still be self aware, experience and think, and have the illusion of choice, even if you have no choice at all. Science is more and more indicating that choice is an illusion anyway, if anything.

[purplepurpose]

Rob, If this reality is 100% predetermined, then by definition there is nothing to see or test for God. I guess, this reality wouldn't exist if God didn't get Something out of it.

P.S. Sorry for the off topic.

Also, robvalue, I was thinking, if we are talking about peaceful religions, who have a brutal doctrine of hell and heaven. Is it right to say that people avoid such ideas of afterlife, not because they are silly, but because, if doctrine of "hell or heaven" is taken seriously, then all our life joy is destroyed by fear of upcoming judgment.

[henryp]

Still no counters to my envelope scenario.

(I put an envelope in your pocket, containing a note that you will go through the red door, although you haven't seen it. I know this is true, because I have precognition. Can you choose to go through the blue door?)

Yes, I could have chosen the blue door, and you would have had to put a note in my pocket saying I go through the blue door.  It is my choice that is controlling your actions, not the other way around.
(If I believed in such at thing)

[RoadRunner79]

To the envelope question.... I don't see how an unknown envelope (no matter what it contains) can effect your choice or free will.

[RozKek]

To the envelope question.... I don't see how an unknown envelope (no matter what it contains) can effect your choice or free will.

Then you're either not very intelligent or willfully ignorant. If the envelope says you're going to walk through door A, then your will is already determined to walk through door A, you can't walk through any other door but A, in that case it is isn't free. It is your will, but it isn't a free will because it's determined. It seriously doesn't get easier than that, if you don't understand that, there's no hope.

[RoadRunner79]

To the envelope question.... I don't see how an unknown envelope (no matter what it contains) can effect your choice or free will.

Then you're either not very intelligent or willfully ignorant. If the envelope says you're going to walk through door A, then your will is already determined to walk through door A, you can't walk through any other door but A, in that case it is isn't free. It is your will, but it isn't a free will because it's determined. It seriously doesn't get easier than that, if you don't understand that, there's no hope.

So; what is the difference if you go through door A and there is no envelope with the prediction? What does it mean that you do not have freedom in this sense?
I could will to fly like a bird, but I'm not free to do so.

[RozKek]

Then you're either not very intelligent or willfully ignorant. If the envelope says you're going to walk through door A, then your will is already determined to walk through door A, you can't walk through any other door but A, in that case it is isn't free. It is your will, but it isn't a free will because it's determined. It seriously doesn't get easier than that, if you don't understand that, there's no hope.

So; what is the difference if you go through door A and there is no envelope with the prediction?  What does it mean that you do not have freedom in this sense?
I could will to fly like a bird, but I'm not free to do so.

The envelope was an analogy. If what you will do is already known (doesn't matter by who or what) then you have no free will because your will is already determined. That simple. In this case the envelope knows your will, in your case the very God you believe in knows your will. 

Something cannot be known if it isn't determined, in this context.