Page 1 of 1

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

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 8:03 pm
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?

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

Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 10:32 pm
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:
-
-
-

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

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 11:19 am
by cubeus19
Yes I'm talking about determinism verses freewill. And yes the kind of determinism I'm referring to is soft-determinism.

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

Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 11:54 am
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.