Zax wrote What is "free will"?

We should start by learning the standard terminology associated with the "free will" debate.

1. "Will" means the function of choosing.

2. Constraining causes force people to act against their will. For example, a person being robbed at gunpoint is constrained in this sense. Non-constraining causes do not force people to act against their will but are sufficient to cause an action. For example, if you have a fear of heights, you probably will not want to walk on the edge of a tall building's roof; that fear is a non-constraining cause.

3. Indeterminism holds that genuinely free acts are not causally determined. Determinism holds that everything is causally determined (i.e., that prior events and conditions necessitate every event).

4. Incompatibilism holds that determinism and human freedom are incompatible; it rejects determinism and affirms human freedom. Compatibilism holds that determinism and human freedom are compatible.

5. Libertarian free will is the ability either to do something or not. Free agency is the ability to do whatever a person wants to do (apart from constraining causes). This difference is not a small one. For example, do non-Christians have the inherent ability either to choose to trust Christ or not? Is such a decision ultimately dependent on their will?

6. God's general sovereignty holds that God is in charge of everything without controlling everything. God's specific sovereignty holds that God ordains everything and that he controls everything to accomplish his purposes.

Source

Click to View Content

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/do-we-have-free-will.php

My question to athiest?

Click to View Content

For anyone who does not believe in a god or anything whats your view I would like to know?

This is probably the biggest issue for me

Part of the issue here is the nature of time. If the future exists for God even as the present does, then God is consistently in all places at all times and is not restricted by time. This would mean that time was not a part of His nature to which God is subject, and that God is not a linear entity; that is, it would mean that God is not restricted to operating in our time realm and is not restricted to the present only. If God is not restricted to existence in the present, our present, then the future is known by God because God indwells the future as well as the present (and the past). This would mean that our future choices, as free as they are, are simply known by God. Again, our ability to choose is not altered or lessened by God existing in the future and knowing what we freely choose. It just means that God can see what we will freely choose -- because that is what we freely choose -- and knows what it is.

Part of the problem in Open Theism is that by restricting God to the present only, His existence is defined in such a way as to imply that time is part of His nature and that He is restricted to it. The question is whether or not this is logical as well as biblical?

You Decide

in my opinon i am agnostic(undecided) but my question is to the people that do believe in god why do we have diffrent religions? because christians believe in god and cathlics believe in god and the mother of him as far as i know so if it was true that there was a god we would all believe in him and not have diffrent beliefs i mean seriously i can say oh im making a new reigous group its called morthanlists and we believe in god but we dont believe he is dead i mean its ridicoulous

Wez wrote

Mimz wrote This is odd.
My opinion (as an Agnostic) is that if God were all knowing, then he would know the future.
Knowing our future would cause everything to be set in stone, which would void the possibility of us having freedom of choices. Meaning everything was already pre-planned and we think that we are actually controlling our lives.

It's sort of like an ant farm. They might feel like they create tunnels on their own free will and go wherever, but we have them confined to an area we want.

This would contradict everything.

I just think religion was created so insecure individuals could feel something was there after they died. I really don't care what happens when I die.

Besides, every religion states that they are the "true" religion and everyone else is wrong. Well not everyone can be right. It seems like having someone born into a certain religion, causes a higher chance into said individual being converted into that belief. Causing everything to be opinionated and not necessarily factual.

Also, I would like to point out that usually the oldest data may be the most sound since limited modification has been performed.

Judaism predates Christianity.
Polytheism predates monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, etc.).
Polytheism was generally created to explain the unexplainable(to them), such as weather and other natural events.
So that kind of makes everything unsound considering everything was more or less based off of polytheism.

Those are my thoughts anyway.

When it comes to a God and pre-determinism, I view free will like this;

Your life is mapped out from individual points.

So, sometime in your life, you will get a serious illness. You now have the choice to either overcome that illness, or die. When you overcome the illness, the next step in your life might be to win the lottery, you can decide what you spend the money on.

In short, the big things are mapped out which affect big decisions, but little things such as what flavor crisps to buy are up to you.

You have free will, but the situations in which you use your free will are not your choice.

That's a pretty interesting theory.
Wouldn't that kind of contradict free will though?
Because,
1) You have to pick from a set amount of options instead of deciding some for yourself.
2) You don't have a choice of when you get to use your freewill.
So I'm assuming this would require a brand new definition of free will if it would be considered as such.

Example:
If you got ill, you could live, die, or live with consequences for the rest of your life.


I feel like no one will EVER know.
If there is a god, then we will know but if not, everyone will die and continue believing what they believe as they may not be in a conscious state after death allowing everyone to believe that their belief is correct before they cease to exist.
So confusing..

I believe that God can see what we will do as he is unrestricted by any laws of the universe, but our choice is free, as God would not alter our choice.

It's a complicated topic, a very good one too.