Commentary on Episode Two

this is the shortened version... Erasmus and Luther duked it out over this concept rather heatedly and for all intensive purposes, Luther won out. I side with Erasmus.. but i see the merit in Luther's position, trying to establish God's sovereignity. just as Dawn says at the end, "We're predestined to have free will" love that line and the reactions of the other two seminarians.

the buzzing in Episode One was from the remodeling projects going around at F&M the college across the street. you can still hear it here too. out of our 5 hours of shooting the work lated 3.5 hours of that. so that kinda stunk.

i'm really happy with these small snap shots. originally (in the script) these would have gone on while the credits rolled, after you got the full helping and theological support from each of the reformers (and then you'd know why Erasmus lost) but due to the constraints of shooting, this was the best option. notice how Calvin talks the longest, something he'll be doing from here on out. he has a lot to say and write on all these subjects as he constantly is working on these issues. he's best known for predestination, but he has a pastoral methodology to his work. never does he damn others to hell but simply hopes that they will one day join the church. it is his later followers which do that dirty work, which inturn tarnishes Calvin. but Calvin did set himself up for it.

we humans can use anything as weapons... physically or spiritually.

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)