Questions for "Our Role(s) as Christians on Atheist Forums"

[Angrboda]

You continue to miss my point. You are confusing foreknowledge with middle knowledge. It is not that God knows what you are going to do (foreknowledge), he knows what you will choose to do as a result of perfect knowledge of you and all the antecedents and conditions of your choice (middle knowledge). The key concept is how he obtains that knowledge. He has not seen the future event. He knows the truth of all future subjunctive conditional statements of what someone will freely choose do in a range of circumstances (whether they are realized or not). The mechanics of the choice are still in place. 

Well, I think your Molinism is not an actual solution to the problem Molinists think that it solves, but I have a question.

Given God's 'middle knowledge' about Adam and Eve, what do you think was the probability that they would not eat the apple?

[SteveII]

Fine, I will clarify. However, libertarian free will is not "essentially uncaused choice." It is that the cause is internal mental processes that are themselves not physically determined.

Libertarian free will demands more than that: It demands that the universe be both indeterministic and the beings that live in it are able to determine themselves (a contradiction). It both dismisses causes and asks for a special pleading for self-causes in the case of humans (or any beings with a supposed soul). And yet even if the special-pleading were granted it would still be impossible because it would demand us to be self-causing which is completely incoherent. 

An excellent summary of why many Christian philosophers think that the Argument from Consciousness is developing into the most compelling natural theology argument for the existence of God. It completely undermines a strictly naturalistic world. That is why you think the concept incoherent--because it is...in your worldview.  
I'm not going to continue to hijack this thread. If you want to keep talking about it, start a new thread.

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You continue to miss my point. You are confusing foreknowledge with middle knowledge. It is not that God knows what you are going to do (foreknowledge), he knows what you will choose to do as a result of perfect knowledge of you and all the antecedents and conditions of your choice (middle knowledge). The key concept is how he obtains that knowledge. He has not seen the future event. He knows the truth of all future subjunctive conditional statements of what someone will freely choose do in a range of circumstances (whether they are realized or not). The mechanics of the choice are still in place. 

Well, I think your Molinism is not an actual solution to the problem Molinists think that it solves, but I have a question.

Given God's 'middle knowledge' about Adam and Eve, what do you think was the probability that they would not eat the apple?

Zero. Eventually, given enough time any  set of people with free will would.

[Edwardo Piet]

So it cannot be because we dont know how?...that's argument from ignorance, Hammy.

That's not what I said at all.

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An excellent summary of why many Christian philosophers think that the Argument from Consciousness is developing into the most compelling natural theology argument for the existence of God. It completely undermines a strictly naturalistic world. That is why you think the concept incoherent--because it is...in your worldview.  

That's just an assumption about my worldview. Being is consciousness. That does nothing for the idea of a supernatural God outside of the natural universe.There's absolutely no reason at all why the natural world cannot be conscious and absolutely no reason why there should be anything beyond it.

[Neo-Scholastic]

So it cannot be because we dont know how?...that's argument from ignorance, Hammy.

That's not what I said at all.

Sorry. I understood your objection to be that dualism must be false because mind and body would be different types of substances and therefore could not interact. To which my reply was just because we do not know how two fundmentally different kinds of substances could interact it doesn't follow that they cannot.

[Angrboda]

Well, I think your Molinism is not an actual solution to the problem Molinists think that it solves, but I have a question.

Given God's 'middle knowledge' about Adam and Eve, what do you think was the probability that they would not eat the apple?

Zero. Eventually, given enough time any  set of people with free will would.

So by the standard definition of free will, that it is the ability to do otherwise, they did not possess free will in that instance, as they had no chance of doing otherwise.

[SteveII]

Zero. Eventually, given enough time any  set of people with free will would.

So by the standard definition of free will, that it is the ability to do otherwise, they did not possess free will in that instance, as they had no chance of doing otherwise.

Apparently features of free will include the desire to test your bounds. Wonder 'why'. Desire things 'just because'. Think you know best or reason your way into anything you desire. IMO, you can't separate these things from free will, so they are a feature of free will. I would say that only omniscience stops all that.

[Edwardo Piet]

Sorry. I understood your objection to be that dualism must be false because mind and body would be different types of substances and therefore could not interact.

No I was saying that two different substances are barely asserted based on nothing without any possible explanation on how they could react. And that was only my second objection. My first objection you didn't even address.

To which my reply was just because we do not know how two fundmentally different kinds of substances could interact it doesn't follow that they cannot.

Indeed and I never said otherwise. But why should there be two fundamentally different kinds of substances? And within my second objection I also mentioned that to many people if two different fundamentally different kinds of substances are able to interact then whose to say they are not the same substance? To some, even being able to interact makes it the same substance if we're talking of fundamental substances. Because if two fundamental substances can interact then what is even meant by saying that they are two different kinds of substances?

And again, this is all just part of my second objection, that you strawmanned as an argument from ignorance—you don't even address my first objection.

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So by the standard definition of free will, that it is the ability to do otherwise, they did not possess free will in that instance, as they had no chance of doing otherwise.

Apparently features of free will include the desire to test your bounds. Wonder 'why'. Desire things 'just because'. Think you know best or reason your way into anything you desire. IMO, you can't separate these things from free will, so they are a feature of free will. I would say that only omniscience stops all that.

We're saying that in a deterministic universe if you are determined to do A then you must do A. Again, a choice between A and A is not a choice.

And in an indeterministic universe there can be no self-determining because nothing is determined by anyone or anything at all. This is why libertarian free will is so incoherent.

[Edwardo Piet]

Another question for the Christian debate thread, and an important one: Why won't God heal amputees and why does God allow people to be born with horrible genetic conditions in general? There's a birth condition where a baby is born without the ability to breathe outside of its mother's body but can breathe fine within her body... babies that are fine within the mother but are born stillborn. Why does God allow this?

Hopefully it won't be the unjust 'original sin' cop-out, as if any of us are at all responsible for others who came before us.

[Catholic_Lady]

Because preventing that from happening would require divine supernatural intervention. This is a natural world where God allows nature to take its course, not a supernatural one like the next one will be. For whatever reason, God has chosen to keep it that way.

[Edwardo Piet]

So if God exists he must be a moral monster then.

I mean, after all he also allows child rape to happen. Whatever reason he thinks is valid for allowing that he's objectively wrong from the standpoint of compassion.