God's Will versus Free Will

this stems from one of campbell's experiences;

campbell, the story you gave in another thread (which i don't want to interrupt), about
going to a job interview,
returning home,
praying that god will allow you to get the job,
and just as you say "amen", the phone rings -
the boss asks when you can start! =)
... > proof of god blessing the faithful, proof of god's good timing, et cetera.

ok, i was thinking about this yesterday and thought of a problem with the scenario.

the hiring manager who called you exercised no free will in calling you at that moment if he was being controlled by god. you, of course, did exercise your free will in choosing to give yourself up to god and pray for his help, but the man on the other end of the phone did not. he essentially was forced by god into hiring you, right? how far does this go?

i don't understand how you can say that we make our own choices every day, and we must love god and choose to lead a good life,
and at the same time push in this whole unmatching "god did it" explanation. either we have free will, or god controls what happens to us.

i think this is a really big problem that no one seems to touch on!

christians tend to say "god gave you free will to choose to love him and lead a good life. we have responsibility.",
[our lives are the result of our free choices]
and, (in the very next breath!)
"ah, it happened because it was god's will. god made the decision and i am grateful."
[our lives are the result of god's choices]

so,
are we under god's will, or free will?


this is of course not only directed at campbell; if it was i would have pm'ed it. i think the story he gave was simply a good example of this kind of common confusion, and i'm wondering what people have to say who regularly swap the two ideas around in their heads.

peace,

 

well i'm not going to respond to that because i want campbell to respond to this thread ....

lol

but thanks for your input fuzzy


peace,

 

we live in a level of reality where it appears we are consciously making decisions, flip the channel and you see that all of your actions are a result of the collective experiences you've already been through...like you may think you're mkaing the decision yourself but every decision you make is a reflection of the previous mind moment...not only is that karma(the oldest law in the book) but freud who knew nothing of the sort, said nearly the same thing

 

i absolutely agree with you.

 

I strongly believe that we have free will, but this free will can be influenced (but not ultimately controlled by) God.

Take the scenario of a 2 toddlers playing at the beach: from their perspective it would seem that they are free to do what they want - play in the sand/build a castle, if they stray to far Daddy might yell out and the toddler may listen or ignore, if they try to go into the sea Daddy will pick them up whether they want it or not.

 

So the free will is an illusion?

 

that's not free will. that's "Occasional Will".

according to most christians, if you choose to live a dangerous life (that is, a dangerous spiritual life, away from god), you will go to hell, have have only yourself to blame. we have spiritual responsibility. god does not save us from hell. we walk right into it, do we not?
your story would match better if the father had said, "don't go too far into the water, kids." then left them to their own decisions.


love,

 

i think that it is.

 

true, but can you say that the past actions will definately lead to a further action, or that there is a chance that this action will occur after those ones, and a chance you will choose to act in one or more different actions.

 

God is man's delusional interperation of all that man cannot explain scientifically. God does not exist. Never has, never will. People have free will untill someone in power over them decides to revoke said free will, and force them to comply.

 

good point, and where you may or may not be able to definitely predict the following action, you can still definitely identify that which influences the next action. so the possible next actions are limited, and that is not free will, but limited will.

ps. hi mr migu!

love,

 

perhaps this limited will is as free a will as we can acheive, as true freedom will never be acheivable with external forces affecting us(ie we cant choose to fly because gravity is holding us down)

 

in most religions it definitely looks that way!!

i strongly disagree with this statement. with respect, you are just as bad as those with blind religious faith in claiming to know. how do you know that god does or does not exist? i say, when all information has been weighed, there is no proof for the existence of god. yet, god may still exist.

yes, which means that there was no "free will" to begin with, but only some sort of "limited" or "occasional" will, as i pointed out to butch.

like i said in the first post, the man who called mr. campbell and told him he got the job, if influenced by god's will, was not choosing his employees according to his own free will, and if god continually affects us like that, then we do not have free will at all. remember how many times god hardened pharaoh's heart?


peace,

 

sure, but i think that most people who claim to have free will truly mean that they have full capacity to choose their next course of action. i find that christians use the concept of free will very widely, and yet contradict themselves with throwing in "god's will" in the next breath.

 

hehe, i find it particularily funny when people assume its gods will thats saved them from naturals disasters. If god really wanted you to live, why would he have dropped a tornado on your house in the first place???

 

i find this intersting, god gives us free will to love him and live a great life, but if you dont, you suffer in hell for all eternity. and people wonder why im atheist....

 

Listen you motjerfukcers, we don't givea fuck! ok?,

Good. jus kidding.

 

Hell means eternal seperation from God and heaven is being etenally in the presence of God. The free will is there so you can choose what you want. God will give you what you want, its up to you. If you choose to stay seperate from Him in this life you will remain forever seperate from Him. That does not seem unfair to me.

 

of course it is! you leave out one important point - god hides himself! he gives us a book full of absurd stories that explain who he is and how we have to save ourselves, and that's all.

it ought to seem unfair to you. if it were fair, god would come and stand in front of me right now, have a chat with me over coffee and explain to me why he'd like me to hang out with him for eternity. he could answer some questions, i could answer some questions, THEN i would make a decision with my free will.

THAT'S fair.

hocus pocus ooga booga "believe in me with zero proof" is not fair, duder.



love,

 

ack..... not only that, but he gives us reason, okay?

so we have reason. we have an ancient book full of contradictions. (a few different ones, actually.)
god gives us both, and that's our choice.
it is not fair at all. we could abandon reason, which has for our entire lives done nothing but help us, and embrace the illogical, unreasonable, and absurd. -and go to heaven.

or, we could say, you know what, there's a hell of a lot of religious stories out there, a lot of books and 'truths'. there is no proof that any of this is true; there is no proof that god even exists. i really don't know either way! -and go to hell. (FOREVER)

how is this fair?

i'll tell you one thing, once i get to the whole ancient biblical blood sacrifice b.s. my reason is laughing its cute little tush off.