Post Edited (Tom) : 1/13/2009 2:47:50 PM (GMT-6)

Tom: Greg knows there's an exegetical case to be made for each view and that no one view is airtight.

Jeff: The question is, is one case more plausible than others? If UR is as or more plausible than the others, it wins by virtue of being more beautiful and more conducive to the glory of God. So that's what would be interesting to know--whether Greg sees UR as less plausible for some textual and/or philosophical reason. I suspect he does have the intuition Corey wondered about. It would fit his SATPOE approach.

With regard to the Colossian passage, I think Ephesians, Phillipians, and Colossians emphasize the universal extent of God's plan at least. The use of the terms "fulness" and related terms therein are indicative of that. That at least says something about the object of God's WILL if not specifically that UR will occur.

Post Edited (Similtude) : 1/18/2009 11:49:35 AM (GMT-6)

I'll add this, too. It may very well be that we act as a final cause even when we make decisions that have a probability of virtually 1. Because a decision can be a no-brainer given ends we have chosen prior to the decision. If that is the case, then we will be final causes even with a "divine nature." But there would no conditions in that scenario for which a desire unto bona fide evil would arise. God is not tempted by evil the way we, in our flesh, can be. Paul even says it is the flesh that desires against the Spirit. Presumably, the spiritual body we will receive will have no such desires. No evil desires = no evil acts.

So if it's possible to be true final causes while never having a desire to do evil, then absolute determinism will not be the case for us even if we have the "divine nature." If that is the case, Tom and I are both right about what it means to be free, regardless of the probability of an act. For a final cause is not a determined cause merely due to the fact that it is final.

Tom, are you following what I said above? We have debated about LFW in that sense that I have contended that bona-fide LFW requires a choice between multiple, CONFLICTING, impulses. Typically, this has to do with the mind concentrating so as to give a weaker, but nobler, impulse enough strength to prevail over the ignoble one. But there is also the sense in which we enter a state of choice and then act as a final cause to regulate our "path" to attain the end of that choice. In this latter case, we can act as a final cause even when there are no conflicting impulses involved.

For example, I choose to go to college and get a degree and pursue some related profession. I then act as a final cause to keep myself deciding and choosing in such a way that I implement the means FITTED to that end. In many cases, these decisions will have a probability of one, because they involve no conflicting impulse. Yet, I may still be acting as a final cause because I am intentionally DIRECTING my course of action unto an end.

But determinism in the "hard" sense says there are NO final causes. So if I'm right above (which would mean that certain actions are characterized by final causes even when no conflicting impulses are involved), let me call these two cases of final cause FC1 and FC2, where FC1 is a final cause that requires a choice between conflicting impulses, whereas FC2 does not. Then, since Paul says that it is the flesh that desires against the Spirit, I would say that the self-control entailed in sanctification requires FC1 as much as it does FC2. But in the future state, when we will have partaken of the divine nature, only FC2 will be in operation. But in neither case are we talking about that determinism that denies final causality, per se. And yet it makes room for God to be "finished" with the role of that significant freedom entailed in the operation of FC1 in our current, non-divine-nature state.

Make sense? Final causality remains. Only FC1 is eventually eliminated.

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/24/2009 2:32:37 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Similtude) : 1/24/2009 3:36:01 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Similtude) : 1/24/2009 5:19:27 PM (GMT-6)

Mary was the final cause of her "heart's turning" towards God in poverty-of-spirit, even though her decision was impossible without God's Grace and Empowerment to her.

Right? 

2) Is this how God's Holy Spirit worked with Jesus' humanity?  Basically, Christ-the-Logos' personal use of his human will was the "final causality" of Christ Jesus' decision for him to die for sinners, even though it was never the case that he'd have said "no" to God's Word and Will because of God's Grace.  His human will always naturally and freely followed the Divine Will in the power of God's Holy Spirit.  Jesus always did what the Father wanted...

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/24/2009 9:20:14 PM (GMT-6)

Jeff: I would agree with the above because Mary already had a right heart before she conceived and was notified. Thus, no FC1 was necessary.

Similitude: Alright, then, Zach. Are you following me as well? Is this a coherent way, in your opinion, to describe how we can be non-determined while "beyond" temptation, as God is said to be by James? If so, then I don't see a problem with UR even in the unconditional sense that I'm advocating. As long as God, in judgment, brings the minds of the judged to SEE the truth and their own hypocrisy/inconsistency, I see no reason why they won't intellectually assent to the truth.

Tom: Ah, I see. I didn’t know this was where you were going.

The problem here is that I want to say that compatibilistic goodness in finite humans has to be the result a process of libertarian “becoming” (unlike God). It’s one thing to say that God is a final cause of choices that are necessarily loving because no ‘other’ non-God factors determine which choices God makes. He’s still self-determining. It’s the idea that our choosing rightly would be guaranteed by factors other than ourselves that I resist.

If God guarantees that all ultimately choose God by simply closing the epistemic gap and so precluding the possibility of a psychologically viable rejection of God, the process of becoming required by finite creatures like us is by-passed. That, I don’t think, can result in loving relations. In other words, we can be final causes of choices compatibilistically determined IF we were libertarianly involved in shaping ourselves into a compatibilistic state. That’s fine. But if our choosing compatibilistically is brought about by arrangements God enacts independently of our choosing libertarianly, then it doesn’t work.

Make sense? Necessary being can “be” necessarily loving—i.e., doesn’t have to “become” loving. But contingent being has to “become” loving. So our being finally compatibilistically loving doesn’t undermine our also being final causes of our choices only because we also determined ourselves libertarianly over time to ‘become’ that. It’s still the case that no ‘other’ non-Tom factors entailed my choosing rightly. But I don’t think God can just—poof—overwhelm us with information sufficient to exclude our being psychologically/intellectually able to imagine some reason to reject God. In removing the libertarian nature of choice at that point God would also close to door to our being/becoming “loving.”

T