Calling out Suzianne -- Moral Freedom

Originally posted by sonship
Does Naturalism give you ground to assume moral freedom?

The questions you ask here, do they represent a search for moral truth? Or do they just evidence the fissing and bubbling of chemicals that are acting deteminantly, machine like ?

You question then out of no rational seeking for truth but rather only out of the fissing of chemical reactions ...[text shortened]... hemical fissing of "hope" in us is that "good" atoms will do most of the activity in our bodies.

Yikes. 🙄

I would recommend you initiate a separate thread if you are intent on inveighing against the horrors of "Atheistic Naturalism".

Originally posted by LemonJello
In another thead, Thread 161552, you claimed many times that God is not capable of sin and is essentially righteous. I took you to mean that it is not possible for God to do anything morally wrong; that there are no possible worlds wherein God does something morally wrong.

However, when coupled with your views on free will, this all beco ...[text shortened]... , from what I can tell, your view is incoherent in this respect. Could you please clarify this?

Hey Lemon.

I will try to answer you even if I don't think you'll understand. Not that I understand God so much, but after studying His Word for thirty plus years I think I have some understanding of the nature and attributes of God as taught by the scriptures.

God is flawless. How can a man understand that when he himself is flawed? We can't, not entirely. But it's not necessary that we have a flawless understanding of God to comprehend the concept of absolute perfection.

I've never met a flawless human being, but the Bible teaches that God became a man, and that as a man He was subject to temptation. A contradiction seems to emerge when we consider that the Bible also says that God cannot be tempted. So how is it that as a man God was tempted?

Because Jesus was both fully God and fully man, but was without sin. As a man Jesus could be tempted.

Does any of that come close to an explanation for you? Or did you just want to hear Suzianne's answer?

Originally posted by sonship
Does Naturalism give you ground to assume moral freedom?

The questions you ask hera, do they represent a search for moral truth? Or do they just evidence the fissing and bubbling of chemicals that are acting deteminantly, machine like ?

You question then out of no rational seeking for truth but rather only out of the fissing of chemical reactions ...[text shortened]... hemical fissing of "hope" in us is that "good" atoms will do most of the activity in our bodies.

"Does Naturalism give you ground to assume moral freedom? "

Being human burdens us with moral freedom. And without moral freedom, there is no moral act. Try to yield your moral freedom to another, whether another human, a human institution, or a Higher Power, and you realize it is you who chose that source of moral authority. Each us is ultimately responsible for our choices.

Originally posted by josephw
Hey Lemon.

I will try to answer you even if I don't think you'll understand. Not that I understand God so much, but after studying His Word for thirty plus years I think I have some understanding of the nature and attributes of God as taught by the scriptures.

God is flawless. How can a man understand that when he himself is flawed? We can't, not enti ...[text shortened]... ny of that come close to an explanation for you? Or did you just want to hear Suzianne's answer?

What does this have to do with the opening post? I outlined specific areas within Suzianne's theistic viewpoint that I think are at least superficially problematic, having to do with moral freedom and whether it is a precondition for love, etc. The apparent contradiction you bring up is something altogether different and at best tangential to my concerns. I do not really understand why you're bringing this up.

As an aside, I would say you do touch on an interesting related topic, that of Jesus being both fully God and fully man. This is something that would require clarification regarding a view such as that of Suzianne, given that she further claims that God is not man, man is not God, and that the two cannot even be compared or held to similar standards.

Also as an aside, I have no idea why you think what you just presented would constitute a satisfactory resolution of the putative temptation-related contradiction. You're saying that the Bible teaches an apparent contradiction: that on one hand God became man as Jesus and was subjected to temptation; on the other hand, that God cannot be subjected to temptation. Supposing that is the case, how exactly does this apparent contradiction dissolve once we add in the extra supposition that Jesus was both fully God and fully man? Sorry, but that does not make any sense at all. If anything, adding in that extra supposition only makes the contradiction more explicit, since it is clear that the following triad is logically inconsistent: 1. Jesus is fully God. 2. It cannot be that God is subjected to temptation. 3. Jesus is subjected to temptation.

Basically, I do not think the contradiction you brought up is all that relevant; nor do I think you successfully resolved it.

Originally posted by JS357
I know (and respect) the Catholic arguments pretty well thanks to my education, and my willingness to access newadvent.com and endure its tediousness on various subjects of interest.

The Dilemma is a logical next step but so is he cognitive dissonance argument Suz presents. It's just not as intellectually satisfying.

Whether GOd is free to do good or eve ...[text shortened]... ds me of CS Lewis' intro to "The Problem of Pan" -- you have to approach it with faith in hand.

I'm not sure what it means to say that the truth of the proposition 'God only does good' is irreducible. Can you clarify? I mean, even if Suzianne doesn't think that proposition needs further elucidation, it doesn't follow that the proposition doesn't even admit of further elucidation (which, presumably, is an entailment of it being irreducible). But, of course, the Euthyphro dilemma is precisely a call for such elucidation; it specifies a couple ways the proposition could be true, where the difference is one of explanatory priority. Either God doing A explains why A is good, right, etc., or A's being right, good, etc. explains why God does A. There isn't any escape to this.

Originally posted by sonship
Does Naturalism give you ground to assume moral freedom?

The questions you ask here, do they represent a search for moral truth? Or do they just evidence the fissing and bubbling of chemicals that are acting deteminantly, machine like ?

You question then out of no rational seeking for truth but rather only out of the fissing of chemical reactions ...[text shortened]... hemical fissing of "hope" in us is that "good" atoms will do most of the activity in our bodies.

Derk Pereboom is a hard incompatibilist, so he would say that. The problem with his position is firstly that quantum mechanics is not deterministic. Wavefunctions evolve in a deterministic fashion, but under measurement they change discontinuously and in a random manner. So I'm not sure that one can conclude that the contents of this post were somehow encoded in the big bang.

The other problem is that we are talking about moral responsibility, not free will. It's not clear to me what free will is, but given the option of two courses of action one of which society deems to be moral and the other is regarded as immoral then I am responsible for my choice.

Besides if I made the wrong moral choice and found myself in front of a judge then the judge isn't going to take my "lack of free will" into account. She'd probably just say that she had no choice but to give me whatever sentence she saw fit, as she has no free will either. There is no meaningful way we are not responsible for our actions whether we have free will or not.

Besides I don't think you can consistently argue this. Protestant theology involves predestination, but despite that one is morally responsible. So all of your arguments apply to both Reformed and Lutheran congregations.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Derk Pereboom is a hard incompatibilist, so he would say that. The problem with his position is firstly that quantum mechanics is not deterministic. Wavefunctions evolve in a deterministic fashion, but under measurement they change discontinuously and in a random manner. So I'm not sure that one can conclude that the contents of this post were ...[text shortened]... orally responsible. So all of your arguments apply to both Reformed and Lutheran congregations.

Just to clarify; Pereboom is an incompatibilist, but not a hard determinist. That is, he claims that if determinism is true, then we can't have the sort freedom that many people think is needed for moral responsibility. Further, the type of metaphysical randomness one finds in QM doesn't help, since it doesn't make room for agent-causation.

Originally posted by bbarr
Hey LJ! Thanks, and likewise.

Seems like there aren't a lot of theists around here anymore that engage substantively in philosophical debate. Too bad. I think these topics at the intersection of modal logic, morality and freedom are fascinating. I'm actually surprised that Suzianne et. al. aren't interested in wrestling with them.

Where's Lucifershammer when you need him, eh? We need some more Catholics around these parts.

Well, where are the non-dualistic Christians? The heritage, for example, of St. Gregory of Nyssa and Meister Eckhart? (And, I would argue, a critical reading of the biblical corpus (including the Pauline writings)—especially if the Judaic roots of Christianity are taken seriously.)

BTW, LH is a Jesuit now. I think that is a rich and rewarding vocation for him—at least based on our infrequent communications.

Originally posted by vistesd
Well, where are the non-dualistic Christians? The heritage, for example, of St. Gregory of Nyssa and Meister Eckhart? (And, I would argue, a critical reading of the biblical corpus (including the Pauline writings)—especially if the Judaic roots of Christianity are taken seriously.)

BTW, LH is a Jesuit now. I think that is a rich and rewarding vocation for him—at least based on our infrequent communications.

And St. John of the Cross (a personal favorite), St. Teresa de Avila...even Thomas Merton. It's such an impoverished dialogue without the contemplative viewpoint.

If you do hear from LH again, please extend my warmest wishes. He is missed.

Originally posted by bbarr
And St. John of the Cross (a personal favorite), St. Teresa de Avila...even Thomas Merton. It's such an impoverished dialogue without the contemplative viewpoint.

If you do hear from LH again, please extend my warmest wishes. He is missed.

If you do hear from LH again, please extend my warmest wishes. He is missed.

I certainly will!

As a contemplative by nature, I agree with the rest. As Bede Griffiths said: "unless Christianity recovers its mystical tradition, it should fold up shop and go out of business, because it has nothing to offer!"

Originally posted by bbarr
Just to clarify; Pereboom is an incompatibilist, but not a hard determinist. That is, he claims that if determinism is true, then we can't have the sort freedom that many people think is needed for moral responsibility. Further, the type of metaphysical randomness one finds in QM doesn't help, since it doesn't make room for agent-causation.

I was replying to sonship, not Pereboom. I don't know enough about Pereboom's actual position to even comment on it, but his position as represented by sonship is something that I felt I could argue against.

On the quantum mechanics point I was trying to show that an argument based on a clockwork universe isn't going to work well. As I was making the point I was aware of the problem that a random decision is no more of an expression of "free will" than a predetermined one; but didn't want to argue with myself in my post. In the event that there is such a thing as free will then it would be an emergent phenomenon and not easily obtainable from a lower level theory like quantum mechanics, but not ruled out by it in the way that classical mechanics rules it out.

Originally posted by LemonJello
No, your view is not incoherent to me because you believe in God and I don't. Your suggesting otherwise makes about as much sense as a box of frogs. Your view is incoherent to me because it seems to me to entail contradictions. I'm supposing, provisionally, that these concerns of mine are superficial and resolvable under further elucidation and clarifi ...[text shortened]... al robot. Please feel free to provide some actual clarification of my misunderstanding here....

You are fogetting that Suzianne's God is one that can not be put in a box, so forget about that box of frogs. Her God can create a universe that is billions of years old in just a few days and can use evolution in creation of animals and mankind. That is all perfectly coherent to her. 😏

Originally posted by LemonJello
What does this have to do with the opening post? I outlined specific areas within Suzianne's theistic viewpoint that I think are at least superficially problematic, having to do with moral freedom and whether it is a precondition for love, etc. The apparent contradiction you bring up is something altogether different and at best tangential to my concern ...[text shortened]... contradiction you brought up is all that relevant; nor do I think you successfully resolved it.

There you go trying to put God in a box again. Suzianne constantly says you can not put God in a box. I know this because she is always accusing me of doing it when I refer to God as a Trinity.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Derk Pereboom is a hard incompatibilist, so he would say that. The problem with his position is firstly that quantum mechanics is not deterministic. Wavefunctions evolve in a deterministic fashion, but under measurement they change discontinuously and in a random manner. So I'm not sure that one can conclude that the contents of this post were ...[text shortened]... orally responsible. So all of your arguments apply to both Reformed and Lutheran congregations.

This thread is concerned with understanding what Suzianne believes in some coherent manner. It is not interested in the beliefs of Derk Pereboom or anyone else but Suzianne. Do you have any insight into an understanding of her beliefs about God and moral freedom?

Originally posted by RJHinds
You are fogetting that Suzianne's God is one that can not be put in a box, so forget about that box of frogs. Her God can create a universe that is billions of years old in just a few days and can use evolution in creation of animals and mankind. That is all perfectly coherent to her. 😏

Her God can create a universe that is billions of years old in just a few days and can use evolution in creation of animals and mankind. That is all perfectly coherent to her.

How is this relevant?

As an aside, you do not seem to understand Suzianne's position on this very well. Contrary to what you say, she has explicitly denied that creation could only be a few days. Her view is that creation necessarily had to take billions of years so that it could appear genuinely to be the result of unguided, natural processes. Why does she claim this? Well, again, she's committed to some bizarre notions regarding how knowledge and freedom relate; and she thinks that if there were any solid evidence for a young earth creation story it would mean that persons are not free with respect to relations with God. And for some reasons (not that difficult to figure out, as I discuss below) she thinks this means "creation necessarily had to have taken billions of years in order to appear as unguided, natural progression". The reasoning and inferences involved in this are frankly all so strange and unseemly, I just cannot make this crap up. Here is the direct quote from her in Thread 159473:

"There can be no proof of God because proof would undermine a key concept in religion, that of free will. So yes, God takes pains to prevent proof of His existence from being recorded. Man must come to God through faith alone. Proof destroys this. Consider that God has only shown Himself (or spoken to) those who already had faith in Him. This is also the reason there can be no "young earth creation" for, if proved, this would absolutely prove a divine hand was responsible. Creation necessarily had to have taken billions of years in order to appear as unguided, natural progression. Man not only has to learn to have enough faith to believe in God, he also has to be given the alternative so that he could also logically choose another way. Free will must be maintained."

One of the things I find rigorously disingenuous of her is that she goes out of her way at times to pride herself on the idea that her view is consistent with evolutionary science because it is consistent with an old earth (whilst sticking up her nose to the YECers who fail in this regard). But, as anyone can plainly see, this is just disingenuous on her part. In fact, her view amounts to shameless ad hoc stipulation in this regard, in order to make her creation story immune from falsification on account of prevailing scientific thought. Why exactly did she choose "billions of years" for the time that creation NECESSARILY had to take? Well, because that's what the science currently suggests for the age of the world, and she doesn't want her view to be falsified on that count. There's little doubt that if the scientific consensus changed regarding how old our world is, her view on what creation NECESSARILY had to take would change accordingly. What a complete sham. Is there anything about the concept of 'creation' that would suggest that it NECESSARILY has to be of a certain time frame? Of course not. So, again, we see that it's just through ad hoc stipulation that her particular creation story is "consistent" with the science.

Now, getting back on topic, given the view of hers regarding how knowledge and freedom relate, I'm thinking she should be committed to the idea that God is not free. After all, God is maximally knowledgeable.