Free Will?

as discussion on Jason's Post: Mistakes and Evil

“I tend to think free will is an absolute truth” SVS

i think i tend to agree… however, our choices are restricted, both consciously (i.e., by not doing things that are societally unacceptable but psychologically we could) and subconsciously, through psychological conditioning and upbringing, as well as cultural pressure, instinctive pressure, etc.

All that said, determinism’s thesis isn’t empirically demonstrable (or at least, it’s extremely difficult to demonstrate it), so I personally prefer to think of our ability to make decisions as heavily constrained, but still nominally free (i.e., not determined in a deterministic way, meaning, one could make a choice other than the one they made in a particular set of circumstances). to make things perfectly clear, humans are rather unpredictable in any given circumstance

“evil is from the heart of humanity” SVS

and the question then becomes how did it get there? i can’t believe in orignal sin… my take is more Eastern Orthodox that we are born into a world where sin is already present.. plus our evolutionary nature has a build in self-preservation response. i’ll have to post this on my blog as it’s something i’ve been working on in the past few weeks in my doctrine class… pluses and minuses of the doctrine of original sin, who was right Augustine or Palagian? such like things… these are the things one does while waiting on a child to be born

“Free will………. Bah Humbug… So rather than me having my own free will, I like to think its a collect will that determines our outcomes” T4T

and yet we humans can really chuck off all of these notions and run nakkid into the forest.. something completely unexpected and nonpredetermined. or maybe it was. causality is a messy, messy thing. chicken or the egg? largely we’ll find it’s the common ancestor!

but i like the idea of a collective will. we have that! sometimes it’s good “all men are created equal… life, liberty, pursuit of happiness” and all that jazz and sometimes it’s bad “jim crow and segregation.” i think if we throw in some divine will and try to follow that (namely we’re all connected and must live in harmony with our differences!) we’ll be in a better state.. yet we are still free within limitations. and sometimes even within the limitations a truly creative person can come up with new ways of continue’n.

as Erasmus of Rotterdamn stated ": The Bible is filled with God’s demands and there is an implied assumption that human will can choose for or against God. If there is an ought from God there must be a can from humans." (On The Freedom of the Will)