Robert: I actually intended this thread to be a discussion of the OV argument against God's foreknowledge but I seem to have indicated to all of you that I am trying to disprove free choice. My apologies if that is the case. I am a firm believer in free-willed decision.

Tom: Libertarian free will (LFW)? Hmmm. It sure looks like you’re arguing that LFW is an incoherent view of freedom and responsibility. But if you say you believe in LFW, I’ll take your word for it! <!-- --> But in a sec I'll explain why it looks to me that you deny LFW. 

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Robert: I think I get your (Namaste) line of thought but I still stumble on the idea that my free choices may not be reproducible.

Tom: They’re reproducible. They’re just not necessarily reproducible. In the exact same circumstances I may make the same choice. But I may not.

This is why we’re thinking you’re denying LFW. Because what you’re questioning here just is the definition of LFW.

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Robert: My difficulty with OV is the perceived need to dim God's vision in order to maintain moral accountability within choice. I don't see this.

Tom: I’m not quite seeing it either! I mean, this isn’t how I approach the issue. Accountability is at stake, but it only comes up in whether we go with LFW or compatibilistic freedom. I only see accountability making sense with LFW. But this is all decided in definitional terms before foreknowledge is even introduced. Once I’ve decided that LFW is the sort of freedom necessary for grounding moral responsibility, THEN I move on to ask myself whether or not this KIND of choice can be foreknown. But whether its foreknowable or not doesn’t rest upon maintaining or undermining moral accountability per se. It rests upon the combination of a number of other issues (the metaphysics of LFW, presentism and the nature of time, the correspondence theory of truth, the grounding relation for propositional truth-values, etc.).

Robert: Please show me. IF I'm right and our free-choices must be repeatable do you agree that exhaustive foreknowledge is not incompatible with true freedom?

Tom: Again, this is where you’re arguing against LFW. The definition of a libertarian free choices entails the denial that such choice is necessarily repeating under identical circumstances. LFW just IS this denial. It says that given circumstances C in which I freely choose X, I possess the power/capacity to refrain from choosing X in C. That means X may and may not be chosen by me in C. That I in fact choose X in C doesn't mean that were God to somehow reinstantiate the same C and the same Tom that I'd make the same choice of X. Robert, my being in C the first time was no quarantee that I'd choose X. How could placing me in C again guarantee that I'd choose X? It can't. That's just the nature of LFW.

But you seem to think libertarian free will is compatible with insisting that X has invariably to be chosen by me in C were I or an identical me to be placed again in C or an identical C since I chose X in C once. You seem to think that there's something about my choosing X in C that retroactively DEFINES and DELIMITS me in C such that if God were to place me (or an identical replication of me) in C again, he can know that he'll get X again (and again and again, etc.). Not so.

Robert: If our choices are not necessarily repeatable, I'll feel doubly worse standing before God thinking that some quantum fluctuation or unfortunate "perspective of the moment" caused me to choose wrongly in a situation and harden my character just enough to be condemned.

Tom: No no no. The unique perspective of the moment as a sufficient cause explains any number of possible choices. The perspective isn't limited to determining only ONE possible choice. That’s compatibilism. LFW says the SAME self under the SAME infuences with the SAME quantum fluctuations and the SAME etc. etc. is free and able to make a DIFFERENT choice.

YOU, your unique SELF, are a creative agent, the final arbiter, for free choice.

On an earlier note, you denied that God was libertarianly free in his decision to create at all. You said that given God’s nature, who and what God is, God was not free not to create some world at all. But libertarians DO think God was free in this sense.

Are you sure you know what libertarian free will is? You really do sound like a compatibilist dude!

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Robert (to Tom): Thanks for the reply to the question, tell me if I've got this right. OV believes God understands all POSSIBLE future states of creation. We (as co-arbiters of destiny) assist God in bringing about actual states. Close?

Tom: Closer than close! You split the arrow in the bull’s eye! That's it precisely. But open viewers aren’t the only ones saying this. Process theists agree also (though they’re not considered orthodox Christians). But classical Arminians hold to LFW too, and as such essentially agree that WE have something unique to contribute to the mix, though I think most traditional Arminians would want to avoid describing this as our being co-authors, co-creators with God.

Robert: I'm not used to thinking in the realm of "truth-values". Is that typically how one would discuss these things? It's difficult to say if one can define "bringing about a foreknown possibilty" as novelty for God though. I'm not entirely convinced as yet.

Tom: Well, we don’t bring it about that POSSIBLY X. We bring it about that ACTUALLY X. What's novel (if that's the word to choose) is that X's becoming actual was neither entailed in preceding states or truths. I, ME, the creative center of volition, brought X into being. Before I do so, it’s only POSSIBLY X and POSSIBLY NOT-X that God knows.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 10/21/2006 3:46:11 PM (GMT-5)

Robert: Does it not disturb you that God must continually "tweak" his creation in order to keep it flowing in His chosen direction?

Jeff: Not really, Robert. I see no difference in God affecting a person's thought indirectly by manifest action (signs and wonders) or influencing one's associational thought. In both cases, God is bringing something into one's consciousness that will modify their behavior.

But I do think God is parsimonious about this kind of thing. He doesn't intervene any more than He has to. But that goes for public signs and wonders, too, IMHO.

Robert: Indeed, this tweaking must be continual as some OT prophecies spanned hundreds of years, no? I would have to assume that the intervention in creation by God would become frantic as more and more humans came into existence, possibly screwing up the direction of affairs away from God's intent.

Jeff: Well, I'm amazed that people can be affected so easily by humans in hypnosis and what not. I'm not sure it's really that difficult for God since most people (especially those who exercise little or no self-discipline) are on automatic most of the time.

Robert: Wouldn't it be SOOOO much simpler to assume God KNEW what was to be the result of human choice rather than having to play nursemaid with creation?

Jeff: Yes, it would. But there's plenty of language in the bible that indicates better things were possible as well as intended for this creation. And I just can't logically make sense of God knowing future contingencies conditioned by bona fide LFW. If it's true that God does have such foreknowledge, I think it's proper that He never claims that in scripture. Because He has designed our minds in such a way that we can't comprehend it. Thus, He doesn't expect us to believe it. For where little is given, little is required.

But also, I don't see God as being a nursemaid. God acts providentially as much as is necessary to accomplish whatever His ends are. No more and no less. Parsimony implies wisdom. And God is the wisest of all. Nevertheless, God does describe Him self as acting in this world to accomplish ends. This is undeniable for a Christian.

So when we see God with respect to Pharoah, for example, saying "for this cause have I raised thee up" we see God declaring unequivocally that He acts to bring about predictions. He also says elsewhere that He "gives" the kingdom to the basest of men. This seems to mean that God is acting in the world as well as predicting its future events. I see no need in describing that as being a nursemaid.

Robert: The difficulty for me arises with the idea that Heather and Heather, if identical and placed in identical situations, COULD diverge. I can't grasp how this should occur.

Jeff: I can't grasp it either. The notion of final cause is both fundamental and sui generis. One can't explain it in the sense of analyzing it or finding analogies for it. But you believe in final causes also. So how do you explain free-will? All you can do is say that it is real, right? And then work out the logical implications of it.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/21/2006 9:50:32 AM (GMT-5)

Hi:

I'm looking my post over and it's occured to me that I haven't really added anything to the problem other than an actual mechanism for choice.

The instant of determination is still subject to the chooser and not necessarily repeatable. However, this has helped me to deal with my randomness problem. In light of my definition, the idea of repeatability makes the whole process seem even more deterministic. I'll stop harping on this now. I think I've got some reading to do. Thanks for your help, all.

Compatibilism, most famously championed by Hume, is a theory that suggests that free will and determinism are in fact compatible. According to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires. That is, when one says that one could either continue to read this page or to delete it, one doesn't really mean that both choices are compatible with the complete state of the world right now, but rather that if one had desired to delete it one would have, even though as a matter of fact one actually desires to continue reading it, and therefore that is what will actually happen.

Hume also maintains that free acts are not uncaused (or mysteriously self-caused as Kant would have it) but rather caused by our choices as determined by our beliefs, desires, and by our characters. While a decision making process exists in Hume's determinism, this process is governed by a causal chain of events. For example, one may make the decision to support Wikipedia, but that decision is determined by the conditions that existed prior to the decision being made.

Compatibilists often continue and argue that determinism is not just compatible with free will, but actually necessary for it. If one's actions aren't determined by one's beliefs, desires, and character, then it seems that they aren't one's real actions.

Post Edited (Corey) : 10/22/2006 8:14:11 AM (GMT-5)

Hi Robert-

Here’s hoping you check back in sometime soon.

Robert: I think our problem is one of definitions:

1) Tom's definition- LFW is the ability of an agent to choose any logically consistent unconstrained (truly free) choice in a given circumstance.

2) Rob's definition- LFW is the ability of an agent to make a choice wholly consistent to the chooser at instant A in any given cicumstance. Constraint on choice A is wholly internal.

Hope I didn't butcher your take.

Tom: Not sure if you butchered it or not! It’s a matter of the understanding of different terms we bring to the conversation and I’m still not entirely sure where you’re coming from, but the more I read you the more convinced I am that you’re a compatibilist. Your definition of LFW is not a definition that any libertarian I know would find adequate. But it is an almost textbook definition of compatibilist choice.

Let me start with what you end your post with. You ask, “Does this show you why it's not LFW I find unintelligible but your (OV) definition of LFW.”

Not really, since neither I nor anyone else here has offered a unique OV definition of LFW. In terms of just stating what LFW is, OVers are no different than non-OV theistic libertarians or atheistic libertarians. What I’ve said about LFW is just the textbook stuff. There aren’t any unique OV contributions to or alterations of the standard definition of LFW that I know of.

I’m not sure what understandings you’ve got going for “unconstrained” or “truly free” when you summarize my definition of LFW, but let me just say that no libertarian thinks LFW choices are “unconstrained” in an absolute sense if by unconstrained you mean “uninfluenced” by factors outside the person making the choice. LFW choice isn’t free of all influences. We’re influenced by our pasts, our habituation, our contexts, by the laws of logic and physics, etc. But where a choice is free in the libertarian sense, these influences are not causally determinative. that is, they don't causally entail any one particular choice. They leave open the question of which of the several possible choices we face we'll end up making. So I don’t think LFW choice is the ability to choose “any logically consistent choice.” In terms of pure logical consistency, there may be many logically consistent states of affairs (i.e., states of affairs whose descriptions are not self-contradictory) that I do not now possess the ability to actualize.

So here’s my definition of LFW: I’m free in the libertarian sense with respect to some choice if I am able both to choose F and to refrain from choosing F. That’s it. That’s all open theists go on in mapping out their arguments for the incompatability of LFW and foreknowledge of choice F. No unique OV tweaks on LFW.

Now, there’s certainly truth in your compatibilist definition. LFWers don’t disagree that a free choice will be consistent with the agent’s desires. It’s just that this is not enough to secure the genuinely free nature of choice, for we can easily imagine scenarios in which the agent is willing and desirous but still not free.

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Robert: The problem with your definition is that when you make all the options available to the agent at any particuler instant in time, meaning (moral responsibility etc.) is blurred.

Tom: Not sure I follow you. How would YOU define an “option” or an “optional choice” for agent S in circumstance C at time T? All I mean is that in C agent S faces a limited number of options or alternatives. And the only meaningful way to talk about “options” that I know of is to understand them as “possible futures” or states of affairs I have the ability to actualize. I can’t actualize them all (assuming they’re mutually exclusive options). So how does this understanding of options available to the agent blur the meaning of moral responsibility? On the contrary, it clarifies and defines. It’s precisely what people assume universally when they deliberate between options and choose as well as when they hold themselves and others accountable for their choices.

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Robert: Also, there really are no morally responsible unconstrained (absolutely free) choices.

Tom: There ya go. This must be what you thought I was describing. But I hope you see now it’s not. No libertarian I know of thinks LFW choices are absolutely unconstrained, i.e., free of ALL external influence.

Robert: Let me explain: You are tempted to watch pornography on your computer. Your base instincts would have you do it immediately. You become self-aware of the impulse and begin, in your mind, to debate the implications. Your mind vacilates between posibilities and at some instant in time (T) you make your choice. The state of your mind-spirit-soul at instant T is what determines your choice.

Tom: Yep. You’re a straight-up compatibilist for sure. That’s fine too. Cool. But make sure you call it this and not LFW. As you say, the “state of your mind-spirit-soul at instant T is what determines your choice.” Compatiblists argue that given all the facts about my “state” at time T there is only ONE real option, ONE possible future, ONE story-line open to me. The "state" determines the choice; that is, given the particularities of the state, only ONE particular choice could possibly follow. Given that “state,” I’m capable of doing only ONE thing, and that is of course what I do.

A libertarian says that sometimes the “state of my mind-spirit-soul at instant T” isn’t causally constraining, doesn’t causally entail only ONE next step, one choice. Sometimes our “state” taken in its entirety, with all its particularities, is causally indeterminate with respect to what our next step will be. In those circumstances we’re free in the libertarian sense. Of course, it's this claim that actual states DON'T causally necessitate only one particular next state that creates the so-called problem of "randomness" that LFWers have struggled to explain. I hope some of the sources we suggested will help you out.

Hope this clarifies things. I like you’re style Rob! Good stuff. Hang out here any time you want. It’s a privilege and honor to talk with ya.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 10/22/2006 8:22:30 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (TGB) : 10/24/2006 11:40:07 AM (GMT-5)

Hi Tom:

I think I finally get it. Thanks for being so patient.