God is omnipotent - he all powerful and controls everything
God is omnipresent - he is everywhere
Free will is independent of God’s Influence
3a. God is omnipotent - he controls everything
3ai. Free will is God controlling you
3b. God is omnipresent
3bi. Him existing everywhere means that he exists in your ‘free will’
3bii. If another power (free will) exists other than God’s, God cannot be omnipotent and omnipresent.
4a. God is controlling your ‘free will’
4b. Or God is either omnipotent or omnipresent
4c. Or God is neither omnipotent nor omnipresent
4d. Or God doesn’t exist
4e. Or the description of God’s characteristics stated in the bible are false thus nullifying the basis for all other points
4f. God can do WTF he wants and is unaffected by all laws
EDIT 1:
5a. God is omniscient
5b. God knows everything including his future
5c. God cannot do anything randomly because he knows everything he will do
5d. If God can do something that he did not know about before he is omnipotent but not omniscient, but if he cannot defy the things he knows he will do he is not omnipotent
What is your opinion on the above?
Are there any points I missed out?
Disagree or agree?
I still don’t really understand the popular notion of free will. It strikes me that either one is controlled by natural law (both through innate inner forces (instincts) as well as ‘stimulation and reaction’ or cause and effect), or one acts according to logic. No persons actions are plucked out of the air, but rather informed by either inner experience or reason. Therefore, if God is the foundation of both natural law and logic, then God is in all and powerful over all.
Perhaps someone could contradict my notion by proposing a definition of ‘free will’, before I disappear up my own ar… argument.
Free will is a form of self-determination pursuant to which there are no extrinsic costs involved. It nearly exists. Unfortunately, the Other persists in exacting a toll.
I might also say extrinsic rewards. Anything derived from an extrapersonal source that fetters one’s ability to make a decision based solely upon personal preference in the moment. A memory of my grandmother saying “Tut-tut”. The projection of damnation. The projection of eternal bliss. The economies of interpersonal relations and butterfly effects…
Sometimes, I like to replace words that sum up a great many words with the words that they sum up and see how the statement follows.
I find that it helps in logic, even when you know the definitions by heart.
So…this is what we get.
Free will is a form of determination by oneself, without outside influence proceeding after which there are no outward or external exchanges* involved. It nearly exists. Unfortunately, the Other persists in rigid or severe demands or requirements (of) a charge.
*exchanges was used to represent “cost” and “reward” options.
So, free will is without outside influence and has no outward mutual interaction*.
*same as exchange
OK…I’ll follow with that for now, but what do you mean by “Other” when you say, “Unfortunately, the Other persists in exacting a toll.”
ooh i never thought about that! Can an omnipotent being overcome its omnipotence? or is the power of omnipotence omnipotent
Oh well my Bible Studies teacher says that God being omnipotent means that all powerful and all powerful means that he has the power to not be all powerful right?
It’s really this simple.
Omnipotent just indicates that the object given this attribute has the ability to control everything.
That does not mean that they must control everything.
The old adage (roughly):
The greatest power is knowing that you have the power to take away and leaving it be.
Take “all powerful” as a Nuclear Missile.
Now, because I have a Nuclear Missile doesn’t mean that I have to use the Nuclear Missile, but I could.
Because I can, is why people observe that I have power.
If it is still not making sense, then just take it this way.
Omnipotence is just a way of expressing that there is nothing more powerful in will than God.
That’s it.
If God doesn’t care to enact God’s will, then presumably, it is not enacted.
If I don’t care to enact my will over what my wife orders for Pizza, then I won’t enact my will.
Pretty simple.
If free will exists, one would expect that God would have it as well otherwise God is not an entity, but a device.
We are, of course, neglecting a striking argument against God’s omnipotence. Here’s an example of it from Ouspensky’s ‘In Search of the Miraculous’:
“We had many talks about the idea of miracles, and about the fact that the Absolute cannot manifest its will in our world and that this will manifests itself only in the form of mechanical laws and cannot manifest itself by violating these laws.
I do not remember which of us was first to remember a well-known, though not very respectful school story, in which we at once saw an illustration of this law.
The story is about an over-aged student of a seminary who, at a final examination, does not understand the idea of God’s omnipotence.
“Well, give me an example of something that the Lord cannot do,” said the examining bishop.
“It won’t take long to do that, your Eminence,” answered the seminarist.
“Everyone knows that even the Lord himself cannot beat the ace of trumps with the ordinary deuce.”
Nothing could be more clear.”
Or rather, I am easily confused by what I mean by the Other (especially on Friday nights). For practical purposes, there is me and then there is everything else. But that, of course, doesn’t in and of itself hold much weight theoretically. The more my cogitations advance, the less a distinction occurs. And for the purposes of free will, a clear distinction is (I’m assuming) quite essential.
There’s the card game and the player, as Rainshine87 notes above. Let’s say the Other is that about which I know. Not necessarily also that about which I am ignorant, mind you. For I often attempt to locate, per chance know, my Self, and in the process find nothing other than echos of the Other, …things I know about. Now, of course, I sublimate with the great skill humans have and re-achieve a practical sense of self. I fool myself, perhaps as a necessity of rational life.
Temple Grandin, the famous zoologist, designer of the most efficient cattle shute systems in America, and person on the autism spectrum disorder continuum, in attempting to describe the autistic experience, talked of how, when making a choice, it was a question of veto power, not free will per se, for her. I think the same might hold true more broadly, though we who are off the Pervasive Developmental Disorder grid have greater powers to sublimate our impressions about the matter. We are presented pre-determined options, to which we have the power to say no, to the point even of saying no to making a choice. Other than that we have no free will, as individuals. As participants in intersubjective ventures, though, a freedom of will might be said to manifest; but not one connected to an isolated decision-maker.
So many assumptions in that statement.
Let’s just replace definitions where the words are and see if it still makes sense to say that God can’t play a 2 over an Ace.
So let’s try that again.
The only point that was obvious here is that we wouldn’t be able to understand something Certain if it chose to do something outside of our generalized idea of what is possible.
Or to define that another way:
Such an event would be incomprehensibly awesome.
That is to say, that such an event would be impossible to understand or comprehend to the point of causing an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like.
[edit]Further thought: This just happens to nearly describe the same thing as the relationship between Quantum Physics and Classical Mechanics (which the presented thought was made under).
So an incredibly short response could have equally have been, “This claim was shown mistaken by the advent of Quantum Physics”
[/edit]
So that would mean that
Would rather read something like
But then of course, this falls under another problem.
In both cases Omnipotence is being limited in a boundary.
In the first concept, Omnipotence is attempted to be limited to being Certain, and in the second Omnipotence is limited to the rules of classical mechanics and a card game rule.
There is no point to this example, for if one were to suppose that a two, played by Omnipotence, would not beat an ace, played by man, then one would not be playing on a proportionate scale of power.
We would be assuming that an ace of man is greater than a two of an Omnipotent power.
If a will containing Omnipotence chose to play a game of cards by man’s laws (on man’s scale of power), then that would be the choice of the Omnipotent will, and not a restriction of it, just as I can choose to be held down by my two year old daughter by my choice, not as restriction of my ability.
I don’t know if they are pre-determined, but they are indeed at least restricted options to some unknown variable.
Aside from that, yes, and that would be man’s free will. We are only capable of choosing to do that which is among our choices as we only see choices which we can perceive.
Again, that’s still free will.
Yes, unfortunately for the garden variety notion of free will, there is outward interaction. I think that’s a fortunate thing, though, personally (so to speak). As far as I can reckon, it excludes me (in and of myself) from the judgement of an omnipotent being. Pffew.
Regarding choosing among choices, my point is that we don’t choose the choice (insofar as we want to say that it is ourselves choosing), but rather we say no up and until we are left either with a final selection, or no selection at all.
The positive skill, for sure, is having the capacity to recognize what in fact the range of choices are, and not seeking a blanket means for limiting awareness of what that actuality is.
Insofar, though, as one is operating “religiously” from a predetermined group identity, this becomes the quandry. The Orthodox Roman Catholic parent, for instance, if they are sticking to character, simply cannot acknowledge that abortion is an option for their 13 year old daughter. Their choice, then, is not an act of free will. Thus there is no individual merit.
Less predetermined group identities, I think, provide for a greater sense of what we want to mean by free will. But I would still say that when we are actually taking the time to make a choice we aren’t so much choosing the resultant choice (i.e. saying “yes”), but disqualifying the rest. To the extent we are saying “yes”, we are actually rather reaffirming our identification with a pre-established belief system.
Is reaffirming what we already believe in an act of free will?
Where did we get the idea that Omnipotence is God controlling everything, as opposed to God having the power such that He can control anything he wants? The second seems a little less leading, a little more true to the expected word usage.
I totally agree, except that then we need to conceive of how (& why) it is determined what God wants? Does God control His desires? Does He truly desire? Does He lack? If He’s a personal God, then, yes, I think he must lack, must be deficient in some respect. But many seem to have difficulty with that notion. Some want God to control everything. Most who believe, I suspect, do believe that. Myself, I find even benevolent dictatorship disturbing (at least in the long run… perhaps like Lucifer, it just becomes redundant)…
Huh…an odd perspective.
I can’t agree to that at all, but it definitely beyond me to declare.
That’s, more or less, what we are doing any time we use logic.
Well, respectively, they would have to have the 13 year old daughter in isolation away from the outside world where the concept of abortion can be introduced for that to be held as true.
But I do see your point. We are limited to our choices to that which our comprehension and morality can grasp and agree with.
However, that is still a choice.
Free will isn’t the statement of something always being done freely, but the ability in nature or characteristic to do so if so choosing to.
If I lay out on a table, the choice of CAKE or DEATH and you choose CAKE because, before announcing your decision you considered that DEATH is far less enjoyable than CAKE so therefore you would not enjoy DEATH as much as CAKE and therefore would not like DEATH in this choice, then you still made a choice at your own free choice.
Your options were limited, and you negated to reach your decision, but you still made that decision for yourself. You could have just as easily shocked me and chose DEATH.
Religiously…I’d venture to consider that that occurs pretty often, sure.
In non spiritual instances, however, I do not consider this to be the given, as trying new choices is what allows us to expand our options of choice in the future.
That said, there is most definitely a degree of separation that a given thing can be from the normal choices of a person to be chosen and that degree is based on the psychological profile of the person.
A thrill seeker will choose more rare foods by their psychological design than an agoraphobic.
However, we aren’t talking about free will as a thing of function or contradiction at this level, but rather it’s scope.
Here’s the deal.
You are a capacitor of free will.
That doesn’t mean you get to make the choice in everything, but it means you are capable of making a choice if you have the option.
Absolutism abounds errors everywhere in the metaphysical realm so it’s best to steer clear of it. Applying it can only drive a man insane metaphysically.
In direct answer, typically, yes.
You are still making a choice. The choice that you are making is one built on moral experience which you willingly continue to subscribe to.