 |
 | 
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 11/16/2004 5:09 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by lock
How does one make a choice without influence? If a choice is truly free, name a choice you have made which is totally free from influences. Explain how an influence is not a cause.
My mom told me I was born with a preferred choice long before my process of enculturation. She said there was no apparent reason or influence to cause it, but I preferred the right to the left when I fed.   | | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 11/16/2004 5:18 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by JEE
Influence is when I paint a big huge "W" on the John Kerry signs in your front yard
Ahha, so it was you! | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/17/2004 2:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Lock: How does one make a choice without influence?
Tom: It’s impossible to choose without any influence. All choices are influenced.
Lock: If a choice is truly free, name a choice you have made which is totally free from influences.
Tom: Truly free choices AREN’T free from influences. That’s not the freedom in view.
Lock: Explain how an influence is not a cause.
Tom: You’re kidding, right? Lock, are you saying ALL influences are determining? Are you saying ALL influences get what they’re after? What about one person under conflicting influences (one to vote for Bush and one to vote for Kerry)? Both influences cannot be said to “cause” the vote which they aim to procure. That’s not possible. That I end up voting for only ONE candidate means whatever persons or events were influencing me to vote for the other guy did NOT succeed, did not cause me to vote for their guy. If those influences didn’t succeed, then they didn’t cause me to vote for their guy.
Now, please don’t come back and say that what influenced me to vote for guy A and what influenced me to vote for guy B BOTH caused me to vote for the guy I actually voted for. Please, not that.
Influences are not necessarily sufficient causes. That’s precisely the point. If I put a gun to your head and walk you into the voting booth and place my hand over your hand and send it in the direction of Kerry, and cock the gun back with while telling you “I’ll blow your brains out if you don’t vote for Kerry, then I’ll murder your wife and kids,” you’d vote for Kerry. We’ll, at least most people would. You’re the only person I know who would agree that under such circumstances you voted “freely.” Now, we can say under such circimstances I “influenced” your vote if we define “influence” to mean “determining causation,” but we don’t usually understand influence in determining terms. We typically understand it to fall short of that, as an attempt to do everything I can do short of making your choice for you to convince you to vote for my guy. When influence becomes determining, we call it “determining” or “causing.”
You’re view of “influences are [determining] causes” boils our choices down to the same determined sort of reaction a we get from slot machines, votes at gunpoint, robotics, and hungry cows choosing to move toward rather than away from the slop when it’s thrown into the trough. The consequences are horrific (loss of any intelligent basis for affirming personhood, mutuality of personal relationship, intimacy, love, and moral accountability). You keep asking me to do more than just “claim” this, but I keep asking you without any response whatsoever whether or not you would consider your wife’s love for you to be genuine love if you discovered all her feelings and choices were determined by chips planted in her brain and controlled by people watching 24/7, who could turn the dial and get the effect they wanted. Turns out THEY are the ones in relationship with you, loving you, arguing with you, sleeping with you, etc. Your wife is just their proxy. Would you be at all disappointed? Would you feel any sense of loss with respect to the relationship? I would. I don’t know of any who would not feel this.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
lock
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 701
| Posted 11/17/2004 3:20 AM (GMT -6) | | When making the statement
our choice is the cause
I am assuming you all are referring to our choice (cause) causes our actions (effect). This I agree with and as Albert points out is backed up with scripture...
quote:
Matthew 15:
18 "But the things (the effect) that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart (the cause), and those defile the man."
19 "For out of the heart (the cause) come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders (the effect)."
My question does not concern this. My question is one link before in the chain of events leading to an action. My question is about our reasoning in the mind/heart. As John stated our reasoning is influenced TO SOME DEGREE. When you say "to some degree" am I to understand that part, even a small part, is not influenced? Tom stated earlier that we make our choices "with respect to the world". What are all the determining factors we balance when making a decision? Our preferences are formed by our past experiences, our culture, our up-bringing, interaction with others from different cultures, and our disposition (Rom. 8). I am asking what factors in our reasoning are not products of outside influences? When I say outside I mean outside our mind/heart. Paul seperates the law within our members (flesh; where sin makes its home) and the law within our mind, so even our fleshy desires must be considered outside influences concerning our reasoning.
His achievement are we, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God makes ready beforehand, that we should be walking in them. | | Back to Top | | |
|
lock
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 701
| Posted 11/17/2004 3:25 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Influences are not causes. That’s precisely the point. If I put a gun to your head and walk you into the voting booth and place my hand over your hand and send it in the direction of Kerry, and cock the gun back with while telling you “I’ll blow your brains out if you don’t vote for Kerry, then I’ll murder your wife and kids,” you’d vote for Kerry. We’ll, at least most people would. Not sure about you. You’re the only person I know who would agree that under such circumstances you voted “freely.” Now, we can say I “influenced” your vote if we define “influence” to mean “determining causation,” but we don’t usually understand influence in determining terms. We typically understand it to fall short of that, as an attempt to do everything I can do short of making your choice for you to convince you to vote for my guy. When influence becomes determining, we call it “determining” or “causing.”
Tom-
I am not speaking our "influences" as determining terms. We have the ability to reason.
His achievement are we, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God makes ready beforehand, that we should be walking in them. | | Back to Top | | |
|
the Wicker Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 11/17/2004 3:43 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by the Wicker Man
b]but fleshy desires aren't the cause either, or else Jesus, born in the flesh, would have automatically sinned[/b
quote:
lock backpedals furiously:
I did not say it was the only factor involved, I stated that it must be considered an outside influence upon our reasoning. We make our choices based on outside influences, making influences direct and/or indirect causes.
Influences are not causes, directly or indirectly, they're only influences, not causes. If they were causes they'd be called "causes".
lock: "Our choice is still the effect of the cause."
lock: "I am assuming you all are referring to our choice (cause) causes our actions (effect). This I agree with"
You're all over the map, changing your position every post, could you take a stand on something and stick with it?
uromancer to the stars | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/17/2004 3:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Lock: I am not speaking our "influences" as determining terms. We have the ability to reason.
Tom: Oh but you are: “Our preferences are formed by our past experiences, our culture, our up-bringing, interaction with others from different cultures, and our disposition (Rom. 8). I am asking what factors in our reasoning are not products of outside influences?” In your view, though our choices are determined by reason, the entire reasoning process (and so the outcome) is itself determined by history, experience, culture, upbringing, etc. This is precisely how you’re able to say influences are “causes” that guarantee that we reason through to one, and only one, particular outcome. So our having the ability to reason is entirely beside the point in your view. Our reasoning abilities are nothing more than the mechanism through which determining factors affect a particular outcome.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
lock
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 701
| Posted 11/17/2004 7:00 AM (GMT -6) | | From Webster's...
quote:
Main Entry: 1cause
Pronunciation: 'koz
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin causa
1 a : a reason for an action or condition
quote:
Main Entry: 1in·flu·ence
Pronunciation: 'in-"flü-&n(t)s, esp Southern in-'
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin influentia, from Latin influent-, influens, present participle of influere to flow in, from in- + fluere to flow -- more at FLUID
1 a : an ethereal fluid held to flow from the stars and to affect the actions of humans b : an emanation of occult power held to derive from stars
2 : an emanation of spiritual or moral force
3 a : the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command
All of you have yet to answer the question. What part of the decision being made (i.e. our choice) is not influenced by outside influences? John and Tom have said it is influenced "TO A DEGREE". From the webster'S definitions above (not the OT definition!) cause is the reason for an action and influence is the act or power of producing an effect without ant apparent exertion of force.
Tom-
When you use the term "determined", you are misrepresenting my view. The decisions we make will obviously not always be the same. I am trying to keep all of you to the one question, how is a decision being made not influenced by outside factors?
His achievement are we, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God makes ready beforehand, that we should be walking in them. | | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 11/17/2004 10:03 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by lock
3 a : the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command
So, your choice can cause an effect without apperent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.
I like it, your my kind of gym teacher. | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/17/2004 12:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Lock: Tom- When you use the term "determined", you are misrepresenting my view.
Tom: On the contrary, your view of agency is textbook determinism.
Lock: The decisions we make will obviously not always be the same.
Tom: Obviously, because the history leading up to a choice and other determining influences are never identical. But on your view choices are always determined by causes other than the “person.” The “person” is the one player in the equation recognized not as a cause on your view, but as a mere instrument that mediates determining influences—input output, pure and simple. That’s all we are.
Lock: I am trying to keep all of you to the one question, how is a decision being made not influenced by outside factors?
Tom: Again (after answering this many times now): No decision is uninfluenced by outside factors.
Happy agency,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/17/2004 5:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Yeah, I think he's yankin our chain too.
Fire up your Harleys boys. We're outta here.
Next topic?
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
lock
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 701
| Posted 11/18/2004 3:18 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Lock: I am trying to keep all of you to the one question, how is a decision being made not influenced by outside factors?
Tom: Again (after answering this many times now): No decision is uninfluenced by outside factors.
Hold up there boys! No decision is unfluenced, we have found common ground. I believe you misrepresent me view because I do not believe that outside influencs "determine" our response. If that were the case, then as you say the response would be the same all the time and robotic. Sticking to biblical terms and examples...
Paul states that we are either lead by the spirit or lead by the flesh and sin.
Let's take the person lead by the flesh and sin first and let's call him George. If it were true that the outside influences "determined" George's response to stimuli then he would always sin. We all know this is not the case. Sometimes in the war within George's mind/heart his conscience and nature win and George keeps the law of God. Such as Goerge may be an athiest, but he devotes much of his time in the Big Brother program helping fatherless children. George has the ability at each moment to weigh (reason) which influence will affect his decision. It is George's decision even though it is influenced by outside factors.
On the other side we have Bob. Bob is a believer in Christ and lead by the spirit of God. If the outside influences "determined" Bob's responses, then Bob would never sin again. We all know this is not the case. Even though Bob is lead by the spirit of God, sometimes in the war of his mind/heart his fleshy desires win and lead Bob to sinning, even though, as in Paul's case, Bob is doing the very thing he hates to do.
The only exception to this is, at times, God hardens or blinds a person's heart to suit His purposes. On the other hand God will also purifiy or give a person a new heart when it suits His purposes.
What I can tell through our variance of definitions, that OT'ers call the ability to reason LFW. How much of our reasoning is affected by our preferences or disposition in the OT view?
His achievement are we, being created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God makes ready beforehand, that we should be walking in them. | | Back to Top | | |
| 184 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 4:14 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|