Deterministic freewill, doctrine of hell, and God's nature

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cubeus19
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Deterministic freewill, doctrine of hell, and God's nature

Post by cubeus19 »

Hello, one interesting skeptic argument that I came across on Youtube states that if the notion of deterministic freewill exists than there will be contradictions with the doctrine of hell and with God's biblically described nature of being all loving, all powerful and all knowing. Has anyone else ever encountered this argument from skeptics?
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B. W.
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Re: Deterministic freewill, doctrine of hell, and God's natu

Post by B. W. »

cubeus19 wrote:Hello, one interesting skeptic argument that I came across on Youtube states that if the notion of deterministic freewill exists than there will be contradictions with the doctrine of hell and with God's biblically described nature of being all loving, all powerful and all knowing. Has anyone else ever encountered this argument from skeptics?
Do you mean determinisim verses freewill ?

Deterministic freewill implies free will that is predetermined which makes very little sense...

Maybe you mean soft-determinism? -- http://god-defined.com/philosophy/FreeWill.pdf --- http://tedsider.org/teaching/415/HO_hobart.pdf

Could you clarify what you mean a bit more?

Thanks :esmile:
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cubeus19
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Re: Deterministic freewill, doctrine of hell, and God's natu

Post by cubeus19 »

Yes I'm talking about determinism verses freewill. And yes the kind of determinism I'm referring to is soft-determinism.
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Re: Deterministic freewill, doctrine of hell, and God's natu

Post by Maytan »

I myself don't agree with soft-determinism (compatibilism). The way I see it, either you are causally determined to do something or you are not.

I've entertained both sides of the argument quite a lot, and it's a really tough choice (or not, for you determinists out there) to decide which makes more sense. In the end, I don't think we are causally determined to do anything. We may have dispositions and biases that lean us in favor of one action over another, but I believe we still have the choice of which action to take.
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