It was not my intention to suggest that you are stupid. I'm never quite that subtle in that regard.
So if from your perspective you are the chosen one and have been given a mission from God to kill all the Jews (for example) does that make it so?
How is the illusion of choice the same as really making a choice?
How do you know this? Perhaps not only your choice is an illusion but your entire life! Do you believe that since you are unaware of an overriding influence that therefore none exists? There are all sorts of things going on around you that you are completely unaware of. Do they not exist either?
Philosophers have asked this question, David Hume for example. I think we do know reality, but what reality we know is limited to our perceptions.
If God has certain advanced knowledge of T where T=any specific action you take then T was not done freely. That's what we've proven with more than one rational argument. Your having simply stated otherwise does nothing to refute those arguments.
T may have not been done freely, but if one assumes that it is done freely and one believes one could have done something else, then one believes that what one has done was done freely.
The difference is the same as the difference between reality and illusion. In your view choice is an illusion. That might actually be a coherent position but only if you accept God's justice, righteousness and love as illusionary as well. I wouldn't think that to be a very desirable position for a Christian to take.
You have a point here. It is the same point that is often used to refute Calvinism and predestination. The actual matter is, are we free if one can look beyond the horizon, see that it may be not what seems real. Some might say, if one 'thinks outside the box' one sees that freedom is not complete. Now, what you have added about the nature of God is your opinion of what is Divine justice. I know you are familiar with the settled view, you know that many Christian theologians believe in predestination and many more hold to some version of the 'settled view. Consider what I am saying is something a little different and perhaps it is a better argument to make to one who holds the settled view.
The issue of consciousness is entirely irrelevant to the issue because a man cannot be rightly punished for an action if he could not have acted otherwise.
It it further irrelevant because actions are not just physical. We are held responsible and will give an account to God for our every thought, word and deed. What we believe and think are actions of the mind and so the syllogism applies just as effectively to what we believe as it does to what we physically do, as was my point in my first response to you. Make T="Jones believes there is no one forcing him to mow his lawn." Now the syllogism isn't about the actual mowing of the lawn but about Jones' belief, and it proves that what he believes was not believed freely. In short, rather than solving the problem, all you've done is move the problem back a step.
For the propose of this debate, I agree with you here. We are judged by our thoughts as well as actions. Yes, one can assert that Jones not think freely before he acted, that Jones is limited by fate. The point here is you are raising good questions. I would rather get to the real matter and debate the issue of free will, rather than debating the open vs. settled view.
I am sorry that I am not the clear thinker I was ten years ago. I was once able to argue my position much better than I can today. However, as the prosecutor said to the witness making this same claim, “the tribunal cannot know how you once were, they have only your word.”
My attempt here is to have a bit of discourse on this idea that if God has foreknowledge, then does His foreknowledge shrinks our freedom. I agree it does.
Kat
