Chapter 7 of Ostler's book focuses in on the debate over what we ought to understand by free will. Ostler starts out introduces a few philosophical views and then gets into the hermeneutical arguments over what Mormon scripture entails the Mormon view to require. This is probably the crucial chapter in the book. I'll deal with the first part and leave the interpretive arguments for later.
There are basically only a view views of free will vying for acceptance. These don't exhaust the views by any means. But I suspect most other views can be seen as variations on the views that Ostler discusses. I'll go through them briefly and then add a bit of commentary to how Ostler discusses each.
Hypothetical Free Will (HFW)
A person S is free at t with respect to some act a so long as S desires to do A and nothing external to S prevents S from doing A
Right away one can see problems with HFW. What if our desires are controlled by someone else? Ostler goes through a few sophisticated versions of that argument, but I think most people would be uncomfortable with this view of free will. (Although variations on it have been important historically) This leads to a variation on HFW which demands we have control over the causes of our desires.
Control over Causes Free Will (CC)
A person S is free if they are HFW free and any causal factors playing a role in S's decision to do act A are factors over which S has control.
There is still a difficulty with CC. What does it mean to have control over causal factors? Consider that for any choice there are always environmental factors playing a role in my decision. For instance my choice to slam on the breaks to avoid running a red light is clearly affected by the light turning red. I don't have control over the light turning red. Am I not free simply because my environment plays a role in my decision? Ostler doesn't really address this line of thinking, primarily because he sees the main problem being responsibility. If I am just a product of my brain and environment, how can I be responsible? (For Mormons one would presumably wish to extend this to ones spirit, body, and intelligence along with environment) I'm not at all convinced that follows, but I think the bigger problem isn't whether I have control over what is external to me but whether I have control over what is internal to me.
Libertarian Free Will (LFW)
A person S is free if (1) S can do otherwise in a strong sense; (2) if the act is fully S's; (3) S can deliberate about A; (4) if alternatives are genuinely open
This is the view Ostler clearly favors and so it gets most of the attention. The definition is much looser as well, with there being some overlap between the four points. Ostler's main argument for this definition Libertarian Free will is that of intuition. (Well, I suspect the main Libertarian argument from which Ostler derived his views) I personally don't trust appeals to intuition and the fact that we have the perception that we do all these things doesn't entail that our perceptions are accurate. Such intuitions would, I think, fall under the category of folk psychology. And there are fairly good reasons to think many folk psychological intuitions are false. I'd add a fifth point to the above given other discussions with Ostler. One must be conscious of ones choice. I suspect that fits under (3), but it is important to be clear on it.
Now Ostler goes on to discuss textual reasons from Mormon scripture to argue for LFW. I'll discuss those in a subsequent post. For now I want to consider a few other alternatives he has left out. Let me say in advance that while I've read a fair bit of literature on free will, I'm anything but an expert. These are more just some considerations that come to mind.
It seems the obvious place to address issues is with a modification of CC. Let's consider the following definition.
Modified Causal Control (MCC)
A person S is free if (1) all internal causes for choosing A are fully S's; (2) if for any external fact f, S can ignore considerations of f in deliberation; (3) the act A must be physically possible.
You'll note that this takes into consideration that for a choice to be free it must have a certain mineness to it. It must by my choice and not someone else's. This captures, I think, the important recognition in LFW (2). Likewise (2) recognizes that the only control over our environment at the moment of choice is either to modify the environment or to simply disregard that aspect of the environment in our deliberation.
The final point (3) recognizes that choices must be open to us, without requiring the extensive metaphysical sense of openness that Libertarianism commits us to. (i.e. the future can't be fixed, there can't be causal determination) It's important to note that (3) would allow us the recognition that physical law limits our choices. If physical law entails but one possible future, then MCC would be incompatible with reality. That is, there wouldn't be free will. If, however, the laws of the universe don't univocally determine the future, then I think we have freedom. Note, however that this freedom would still be compatible with foreknowledge. Afterall it might be true that we would act in a certain way while alternatives would still physically be open to us.
I bring up (3) because I think one controversial move Libertarians make is to assume that our intuition that a choice must be possible entails an extensive view regarding metaphysics. I don't think that is the case. The reason for that is that I think our intuitions about freedom are very vague and apply only the the realm of common experience. Common experience simply doesn't deal with subtle metaphysics. So I think it erroneous to appeal to it. (See my recent comments on Peirce for more on this)
Note that I'm not necessarily promoting MCC. I need to think about it some more. From my own perspective I can see a problem with MCC (1) due to the problem I see in delineating what is mine and what is me. However for regular kinds of discussion, I think it works. MCC (2) and LFW (3) are very similar and basically get at the point of deliberation. I'm not convinced they are the same however. I prefer to leave deliberation very vague - basically just the ability to decide given facts, what value to give facts and to reach ones conclusions. However some might say this is too vague since it neglects the whole fact deliberations can be good or bad. Some might say, for instance, that someone uneducated isn't free because they can't deliberate well on some topics. I'm not convinced that good reasoning is necessary for free will. However clearly there is a truth there. We'd not want to say a child is free with respect to certain choices due to the limits of deliberation. Likewise someone mentally ill can't deliberate well.
I think those are good criticisms and I can think of a few others. Hopefully I can address them in more depth when they pop up in later discussions.
Discussions on individual chapters from Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of Godliness can be found on our Reading Club page.
Note: I think I missed a few sections of the book. I'll hopefully go back to those sections later this week.
here's a long one, sorry.
1) We posted about this on LDS-phil a few weeks back but I think one can't even begin to discuss the topic until the nature of the identity engaged in decision making is defined. Is it an "agent", a "subject", A "person" these concepts have different histories and different implications. They inform different conditions of possibility for "free will". I believe that Ostler wrote that he was not using a pre-Freudian understanding of what an "agent" is but latter he went on to write that we can choose to be conscious or unconscious(I didn't bother replying to this claim). A suspect idea to be sure. In the psychoanalytic model this is not a choice that one can make, it is the structure of the mind that is always at work and that plays a powerful role in all aspects of our lives that we may or may not be aware of. Is a free agency worthy of the name possible if we choose to put it in terms of a "subject"? I'd say that Ostler would find the outcome to be rather unsatisfying, but what do you get from your reading of the book? What are the conditions of his agent?
2) On another level I think of Derrida's, essay "Force of Law" in which when dealing with the nature of decision making, and judgment (in the legal sense) he shows how difficult it is to create a circumstance in which a just decision can be made when he notes the difference between mere calculations that consist of only applying a rule, that"consist only in conformity" in which no decision is actully made; and on the other hand a decision that both conform to a rule but confirms its value by a "reinstituting act of interpertation." He also describes what he calls the crisis of undecidability as requisit for making a judgement. I mention this because for me it cuts to the quick of the issue of "agency" or "will". As a convert I was told by members and missionaries that I had free will to choose between good and evil. This concept struck me as false from the beginning for reasons prarellel to the descriptions that Derrida offers in Force of Law -although I had not read it at the time. It was evident to me that this was a very restricted context in which a rule is applied, a calculation made, but that there was not freedom, or choice present in the situation since everything about it is fully predetermined from the start. There was no possibility of undecidability or a reinstituting act or interpertation. This concept of free will eliminates the posibility of a decision all together.
All this is a very long way of saying that Ostler's equations of free will don't seem to be capable of engaging any type of consideration similar to that done by Derrida. Am I wrong?
Granted this is a re-cap of a lot of what I wrote a few weeks back, but I'm still hoping for an engagment with the issue on these terms.
3) So what does Ostler conclude about Mormon free will? Is it within the realm of Mormon orthodoxy to believe that we may have something akin to agency but not "free" agency; or to be open to the posibility that our decisions are tempered by many factors, and in most cases its not even possible to know what these factors are, yet we act anyway?
I agree with you. I think Derrida's notion ends up coming out of Heidegger. So I fully agree that to me the whole approach to free will is misplaced. To me the most interesting text of the subject is Heidegger's deconstruction of Leibniz, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. That's one of his earlier texts, written around the same time as Being and Time. The later text, Time and Being is very significant as well.
But I agree with your two points, the notion of a stable delineable self and the notion of some clear formulation of deliberation are both problematic.
Clark,
We’ve discussed this basic topic before and it seems that your primary criticism of Ostler’s strong belief in Libertarian Free Will is that it leans too heavily on intuition – that our perceptions are not a sufficient knowledge bank to define our reality. You noted that as a scientist, you have seen intuitions be wrong time and time again. But science is not a sufficient knowledge bank to answer these questions either. What of that other knowledge bank, revelation and scripture? I think you would agree that it should carry the most weight on these subjects. If so, it seems to me that there is much more evidence supporting the notion of libertarian free agency than any kind of causality – soft or not.
I know you plan to discuss the support scriptures Blake cites in the book later (2 Nep. 2) so I’ll leave those for later as well. But there are others. I have mentioned before that Jacob says that the Spirit “speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really care, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls.” (Jacob 4:13) Further the Spirit is known as the Spirit of Truth “And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.” (D&C 93:24) When we are keeping our covenants we can always have the Spirit to be with us yet our perception that we truly are free agents does not decrease in the least. When Adam and Eve fell “the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil”. (Gen 3:22) I realize this isn’t proof of my point but it does serve as evidence that our intuition is like that of God and therefore could be more reliable when it comes to these eternal questions then you are giving it credit for. My question to you is how do you read these passages as they relate to intuition and free agency? Are there other scriptural passages (besides Paul’s comments about looking through a glass darkly) that you lean on to support the idea that we can’t lean on our intuition to understand things like the nature of our agency?
Second -- Fluxus asks some interesting questions about the Mormon concept of free will. Unfortunately, I am not qualified to discuss the subject as it relates to the writings of Derrida and other philosophers. I have always thought, though, that the Mormon concept of free will was well stated by Stephen Covey. He leans on the writing of Viktor Frankl and others to claim that there is always a space between stimulus and our response in which we are free to choose how we will think and act, even though that space may be tiny. In that space we always have power to choose our response to any external stimulus. Frankl’s archetypes for this theory were those he witnessed in the Nazi concentration camps. Some of them showed that no matter what the horrible external circumstances are (and what could be more horrible than a Nazi concentration camp), people can still choose to be good at all times. So while “acting and not reacting” to external stimuli is much harder in some cases than others, the concept is that there is always a chance to do so -- and the more Christ-like we become the greater our capacity to do so becomes.
PS – your name has been evoked a few times in the comments on my latest post regarding foreknowledge and the timing of the Second Coming, Clark.
Geoff, for my view of why even scriptures aren't too helpful for discerning these metaphysical issues, I'd point you to my discussion of common sense and vagueness that I posted a few days ago. I think Peirce is very relevant to the discussion of the scriptures. I think the scripture as well as the spirit are very trustworthy, but they are also very vague and frequently tied to common sense and the limits thereof. I simply think that the scriptures rarely speak precisely on metaphysical matters.
Clark: I'm just wondering where you got your defintion of LFW since it doesn't appear in my book that way? It seems to me that LFW(4) is a necessary condition for LFW(1) but is not entailed by it. I'm not sure what LFW(2) is supposed to mean and LFW(3) is too vauge. The conditions I set out on page 210 seem to me to be adequate: An agent S is free in a morally significant sense at t only if: (1) S had moral beliefs and appreciates the consequences of his/her actions; (2) S's acts are in part initiated or caused by S him/herself; and (3) S could have willed otherwise under the same circumstances obtaining at t. I give a much more detailed defintion at the end of footnote 44 (p. 245).
It seems to me that persons are complex as are our actions, but these conditions are necessary for morally significant freedom. For Derrida, the morally significant arises in the call of the other and in relation to the other. Since moral demands are inherently relational on my view, morally significant freedom involves relationality and the ability to choose at a very basic level whether and how to relate to the other (enabled by the other in doing so). Ironically, in the second volume I develop these views based upon the theories of Harry Frankfurt. The basic question is what we choose to be our will. We can feel desires and addictions as foreign to us or we can align ourselves with them -- and we can also choose to change some of them.
I don't think it is consistent with LDS theology or scripture that we are not free "to choose for ourselves" or that we can act independently in the sense that we are not merely acted upon by forces ultimately outside of our contol. What Fluxus proposes seems to me to be inconsistent with even these very basic demands.
Clark: It seems to me that your modified view of LFW is not adequate. Consider a counter-example. Say that I am in a store and Frank has a gun to my head and demands I hand over $500 to him. Am I free? On your view, yes. All internal causes for choosing to hand over the money are mine. I can ignore the gun at my head if I choose to do so. I am physically able to hand over the money. Yet I think that almost everyone agrees that there is such compulsion in this instance that I am not free.
Or consider another: I am obsessive compulsive and feel compelled by my own internal thought processes to wash my hands. On your view I am free. All causes for wanting to wash my hands are internal to me. I can ignore the feeling if I so choose, but I cannot really choose otherwise. It is physically possible for me to both wash my hands. Yet I think once again it is clear that I am not really free to refrain from washing my hands. Note the crucial second condition: I am free to choose to refrain from washing my hands if I so choose, but I cannot really do so. It is this hypothetical counterfactual that marks the difference between mere hypothetical free will and what I believe really amounts to free will. That is, it is the ability to actually choose otherwise under the same conditions that is crucial for free will (Frankfurt-style counter-examples notwithstanding).
for my view of why even scriptures aren't too helpful for discerning these metaphysical issues
This seems to be a bit of an odd position to take Clark. My understanding is that metaphysical issues are questions of the ultimate nature of existence, reality and experience. If we can't get guidance on those things from God through prophets where can we get them?
I read the post you recommended and it seems to say that we should hold off on a final judgment on our intuitions because we may find that there is much going on behind the scenes we don't yet understand. You will find little argument to such a prudent course. However, there is an equally likely chance that we will "look beyond the mark" like people have done on these type of issues throughout history.
(Let me point out that the reference I linked to, Jacob 4:14, is the verse that immediately follows the verse I cited previously about learning things as they really are via the Spirit… It is as if Jacob is specifically warning against looking past the obvious in cases like this.)
BTW -- While it may seem I am a shill for Blake here, I’m not. I have harassed him on other issues (which I haven’t heard back on yet, Blake). I just think he is right on this subject.
Blake, regarding your gun to the head example. In the philosophical sense I think I clearly am free, as I can choose to be shot. Now am I free in a wider political sense? No. And in that wider political sense it seems freedom is a matter of degree. I think we err when we conflate the two.
Regarding the definitions, I was going from page 206 - 207 where you say that "this notion of free will is supported by at least four considerations." I tried to shorten them for the purpose of discussion. But it probably would be nice to see you give an explicit definition the way you did for others. I agree that the four considerations are more than a little "blurry" in scope. The reason I didn't bring up the three different definitions from page 210 is those are more tied to the scriptures and not your explicit discussion of Libertarian Free Will. So I was going to get to those in the next post. Thanks to the headup on the footnote on page 245. I confess I don't always check footnotes and I missed your reference to O'Conner. (Funny, as I have the book in question)
Geoff, regarding metaphysics, the reason I think we don't have guidance on those issues is that I simply don't see the scriptures discussing them in unambiguous terms. Some scriptures get closer than others. (i.e. D&C 93) However the scriptures that seem to discuss metaphysical issues are simultaneously the most controversial to interpret. (Is there a interpretation of D&C 93?) Put an other way, while I believe God and the prophets could speak to these matters, I don't think they have.
In my opinion overlooking that vagueness in the scriptures leads us to "filling in" elements of the scriptures with our own philosophies. This to me is what happened from 100 AD - 400 AD in Christianity and its transmogrification by various Platonic influences. (Obviously my non-Mormon friends will disagree) While I think we ought to consider the scriptures rigorously and philosophically, I also think we ought to recognize where the scriptures are vague and allow them to be as open as they are.
Put an other way, I think many of the questions are answerable, but I suspect God is more concerned with faith and righteous living. If we want answers to many of them I suspect we'll get them from science. (Which isn't to say he won't give some answers - such as the scripture about spirits being material. Simply that he likely won't resolve the ultimate issues)
For those without the book, the quote from O'Conner on page 245 reads as follows.
An agent acted in order to satisfy an antecedant desire that D if: (1) prior to this action, the agent had a desire that D and believed that by so acting he would satisfy (or contribute to satisfying) that desire; (2) the agent's action was initiated (in part) by his own self-determining causal activity, the event component of which is "the coming to be of an action triggering intention to so act here and now to satisfy D"; (3) concurrent with this action, he continued to desire D and intended of this action that it satisfy (or contribute to satisfying) that desire; and (4) the concurrent intention was a direct causal consequence of the acting triggering intention brought about by the agent, and it causally sustained the completion of the action." (O'Conner, Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will, 86)
I agree with Clark that the scriptures don't give definitions or engage in metaphysics. That said, 2 Ne. 2 comes as close as one ever finds in scripture to laying down conditions of free will and agency. Given these conditions, if I act freely, my actions are not merely the result of my "being acted upon." I am free "to choose for myself" (sounds like agent causation to me). I can choose among alternatives of good and evil, life and death. I am morally accountable for my choices. However, as I say, the view of free will that I propose is one that is consistent with these scriptural requirements, though I stop far short of suggesting that they require my view. However, it seems to me that the four considerations I give are good ones and they entail libertarian free will.
I think you are right Clark that the first counter-example does leave political freedom but not pragmatic free will. However, that still leaves the second counter-example and it seems to be a good counter-example to show that your definition of free will is not adequate.
Clark, thanks for taking the time to provide O'Connor's definition. I accept a form of agent causation like O'Connor and I find his presentation to be the best available (though I think that Randolph Clarke's Libertarian Accounts of Free Will is also very good). However, my own view is more nuanced in light of my process leanings -- a post-modern influience that I think responds to and answers Fluxus's concerns.
Thanks for that clarification, Clark. Scripture is indeed a bad place to look for specifics on questions that are only spoken of vaguely therein.
I brought up Jacob because he seems to be talking about methodologies for our search for specifics. The point seems to be that we should not bee too quick to dismiss our intuitions on some of these big questions because doing so often leads to looking beyond the obvious truth.
The real questions I have meaning to ask you on this subject are: What motivates you to reject the idea of LFW as described by Blake? (Or are you undecided on the subject still?) You seem to find the idea of a limited foreknowledge of God unacceptable -- is that an intuition driven objection or is it motivated by something else? (My acceptance of the concept was initially intuition-driven though I feel I have been finding more evidence to support the notion since.) Also, in an earlier exchange you were concerned that one model I suggested provided "precious little" foreknowledge for God. What if a model was shown that provided there were precious few things that God may not accurately predict? Would that overcome your objections?
I ask these questions because if there are holes in this idea I begun to embrace I'd like to find them now. You seem to be the best equipped person I know to show them to me. (Yes, I know its cheating to have Blake here, but I really would like to know your answers to these questions)
Geoff, I agree one can overlook an obvious truth. Indeed I sometimes think philosophers talk themselves out of what is obvious. (Which is why of all intuitions to trust, a philosopher's intuition is probably the one you ought least appeal to) The issue though is whether obvious truths are vague or not. I think what is obvious and common sense is also simultaneously vague and applicable only to the regular phenomena humanity in general finds itself in. And that simply isn't metaphysical considerations.
Blake, your second example I actually mentioned in my initial post. What constitutes real deliberation? I intentionally left that vague. But I did mention the problem of mental illness. I think there are fairly good ways to deal with this based upon the notion of "proper neurological function." Now that's somewhat problematic since that is a question of science and technology. i.e. we might not be able to know whether we are free or not. But I don't think it poses the problem you think it does.
I am just curious if any of you have read Daniel Dennett's "Freedom Evolves." If so, what is your take on it?
In his chapter on libertarianism, he says the following:
"What libertarians plausibly claim to need can be provided without indeterminism, and indeterminism cannot make any difference that could make a moral difference."
"An examination of the best positive case for libertarianism shows that it cannot find a defensible location for indeterminism within the decision-making processes of a responsible agent."
He claims that the principle motivation in our accepting libertarianism is our desire to assign responsibility. "The basic idea is that the ultimate responsibility lies where the ultimate cause is," said Robert Kane. (This idea translates into blaming God in the mono-theistic paradigm, but not ours.)
Dennett compares this to our proving that we are not mammals. After all, every mammal has a mammal mother. If there are mammals today, then there have only has a fininte number of mammals. But if there has been even 1 mammal, we must conclude that there have been an infinite number of them to account for the mother and mother of mother and so on. Thus there are no mammals.
You guys are better informed than me, what do you think?
I don't tend to find Dennett's comments terribly convincing. At one time I really liked Dennett. However the more I study various topics he's written about the more I think he has a nasty habit for conflating issues. For instance his paper on realism was very influential to me until I started studying Peirce. A few Peirce scholars pointed out just how confused the paper was. I'm certainly sympathetic to philosophical attempts to look at the "big picture." Indeed I think a lot of Continental philosophers I study do just this. But at the same time I think one can run into problems if one isn't careful.
I'd also point out that Dennett's claim about Libertarianism is really just a metaphysical claim that there aren't any entities outside of those postulated by physics. (i.e. the notion of a true agent as a metaphysical origin for choice) That's not terribly convincing, although I do tend to agree with him regarding appealing to certain kinds of quantum indeterminacy as a way of explaining Libertarianism.
I do tend to think that some appeals to responsibility end up needing the equivalent of an "unmoved mover." However many Libertarians would suggest along lines similar to Dennet that emergence can avoid this. But that's a whole other argument I'll not get into.
One more quick point, I think the definition Blake footnoted from O'Conner isn't as incompatible with foreknowledge as I think Libertarianism requires. i.e. more has to be added. But I'll break out my O'Conner tomorrow and perhaps add a post on that topic.
Regarding Dennett's allegiance to strict materialism, there can be no question about that. I find it interesting, however, that Mormon's are, ideally, not that far from materialism, though of a different sort. This is one of the main points made by Paulsen and leads to a less offensive reading of Sears' paper on determinism.
Gentlemen: I hope that you will allow a late comer to join your discussion. I have just completed reading this book and enjoyed the stimulation it offered very much. I do think that there were several aspects that were missed in the book that I think are crucial to the discussion.
In the discussion of free will, for example, there is little acknowledgement of the pre-existence in the process. In my view this makes the discussion of what mormonism offers impossible to fully understand. May I explain?
If I view that moral agency is required for proper growth and development as a child of God then I must see an application of that principle that is allowed to develop in its complete nature. I do not think that it is possible to have that happen in this mortal life, but it was possible in the pre-existence. As we all try to define free will as a concept with limitations this is what we are acknowledging - that a complete or perfect exercize of this principle is not possible in this life.
I would define moral agency as requiring at least four elements: 1. an understanding of the choices involved in a decision; 2. an understanding of the consequences of each choice; 3. an understanding of God's will in the matter; and 4. the freedom to act unfettered by any but my own inclinations and understanding. None of these can be attained in this life, yet all were present in the pre-existence. To the degree we are able to exercise these principles in their complete form we are able to exercise complete agency and freedom.
Therefore I see free will as not being present in this life, but our actions in this life being a result of all that we became in the pre-existence along with the limitations we have in this life.
We have some freedom in this life, but the real agency and free will was entailed in the decisions and actions taken in the eons we lived before coming to this world.
To ignore this aspect in discussing free will or agency leaves out a big piece of the picture.
I am not as well read as most of you, so forgive my inablilty to reference other writers. I hope that you can understand what I am trying to say and respond. I look forward to that.
George
George, I'd actually postulated a theory along those lines. The way I presented it has some really big problems. I keep meaning to add to it. Actually I've been meaning to do the rest of Blake's book but time has been against me.
Clark I think it is the basis of the mormon doctrine of agency.
I want to restate my question in this way.
If a person acts (a) of his/her own agency in response to circumstances that have been freely, and with full knowledge of the consequences, agreed (b) to in advance (in the premortal life) then does that action (a), in response to the circumstances, constitute moral agency and therefore utilize free will as part of that moral agency?
I beleive that this is the very basis of agency and freedom in this life. To ignore the influence of premortal life is to ignore the prior years, millions of years, of our development.
It also leads to other concerns I have with the premise of the book. Acceptance of this notion fits right in with a modified middle knowledge and allows for God to know all that will occur. It removes the concern for free will in this life and allows for our complete agency, including perfect free will, in our overall life.
God can therefore have complete and perfect foreknowledge without removing agency from our lives.
In my opinion.
George
One problem George - the scriptures say that we are free in this life. We can choose among alternatives of good and evil, life and death. It is a gift resulting from Christ's atonement. This life is the time choose -- not merely the life before this one.
I would suggest that we are free in this life and that we do choose amoung alternatives - but not all alternatives are available to us. Because of enviroment, family, social organizations, physical limitations we do not have unfettered choice. Furthermore, in my mind, the scriptures and prophetic utterances point us, not to free will, but rather to living up to our choice to do the will of the Father. We can freely choose to do His will, but in doing so we freely give up some options as to our actions. By freely giving up some choices are we negating free will and agency? I think not, but perhaps you disagree. Perhaps absolute free will, but not the higher principle of agency.
Therefore to suggest that this life is the only time we use to prepare and to choose, is to ignore the reality of the situation. And to suggest that the highest good is free will is incorrect. Incorrect because under a useful, rather than a contrived definition, free will simply does not exist for any of us. I suggest that we are free in this life only within the limits of circumstances that we accepted of our own completely free will and knowledge. It is the acceptance of the real life circumstances that is the expression of complete agency and free will in perfect knowledge. That that knowledge is now hid from us by the vail does not negate its influence on us as we now are in the circumstances we agreed upon.
This also brings us to the next concern of the solution you offer in your book. When we say that God has a purpose and that His purpose will not be twarted, then we do not have a solution to the problem of absolute foreknowledge. We simply move God's imput to a different arena.
What is the difference between God knowing, and in your book concluding that this negates free will, and God acting to make sure His plan works. When God acts to ensure success it is usually without our knowledge and therefore we can not intelligently respond to it. Yet by His actions God negates our free will by limiting the scope of our free actions. We are no more free under one scenario than the other. Either way God is creating the enviroment that guides our choices and actions, in order to bring about our best good.
Therefore it seems that we need to take into consideration our complete life, including that period before and after mortality. That is the real world that we live in, but may not fully recognize.
Then there is the problem of chaotic salvation, but that is another posting.
Thanks for your comment. I hope to see more.
George
George: As I understand you, you assert that we made all of our choices before we got here and we are merely living them out. That is a denial of free will as it is explained in the scriptures where we choose this day and in this life as a result of the atonement which makes us free to choose among good and evil, life and death (and we certainly didn't have the latter choice in the pre-earth life!). Alma 40 says that this life is the time to prepare to meet God, so I suggest that your view is contrascriptural and counter-intuitive and contra-experiential. You can disregard all human experience (like Clark) if you wish, but it isn't very convincing.
There is of course a world of difference between my view and yours. If we say that God has knowledge of his plan (and in that respect has foreknowledge) but doesn't know future contingents, we have solved the foreknowledge problem not by denying it but by limiting it. So it is a solution. On the other hand, denying free will is not really an option for LDS. On my view, God does not always limit our freedom and almost always leaves us free to choose -- so your assertion that we are not free on my view is -- respectfully -- just nonsense. So we are much freer under my view because we aren't free at all on your view and we are free on my view.
Is your experience really such that you feel completely stuck in your past and bound by decisions you have already made? If so, then I suggest it is time to let go of the past and get creative.
Moreover, I don't claim that free will is highest good. However, I claim that it is essential to what is the highest good -- the free choice to enter into relationships and to accept others in love. Such love is by its very nature a free choice.Your view (if I have understood it) would have us alread having chosen to do whatever do and we're merely going through the motions. That is a disgenuine life where no real relationships are possible. For example, if I knew that you chose to be in relationship with me only because you made a choice in the past and you weren't free to change it, then I would have reason to believe that you do not choose now to be in relatioship wit me but remain in relationship because you are unable to choose me as I grow. One of the great things about love that can claim to be genuine is that it is always a free choice, always new and the dynamics of it change as people change. We could all be dead and still have the same effect on your viwe -- and in fact I would say that living life as you see it is to be already dead but not yet buried.
Blake, in spite of several statements that I have made stating clearly that I beleive we make decisions in this life freely and without compulsion you seem to think that I deny that we do so act.
I do say that we do not act outside of our circumstances and that those circumstances have a great deal to do with the decisions we make. How do you see the circumstances we find outself in affecting our decisions and freedom to act?
Surely you would not deny that there is an effect upon our decision making.
The question in my mind is how do those circumstances affect the question of agency. Since they have an effect in this life that limits our opportunity to act complete free of those circumstances, then the existence of those circumstances must be accounted for.
I account for this by asserting that in the pre-existence we were given the opportunity to freely accept the life we were offered and that we accepted that life. Knowing that God had designed the plan so that each of us would maximize our potential on this earth - some to salvation and exaltation and some otherwise.
Under what I perceive to be your scenario, we are placed on this earth with freedom to act - limited by our circumstances. This freedom is such that foreknowledge on the part of the Father is not possible. To not allow God to have complete foreknowledge is unscriptual and against my understanding of the doctrine of the church. Sec 93 points out, as I know you are aware, that the very essence of God, defined as his glory, is intelligence or in other words truth and light. Truth is then defined as the knowledge of what was, is, and will be. That is a plain statement. It would seem that we must understand our life in view of that statement.
If we deny that God fully understood what He was doing when He implemented the plan and that at best He is dealing with probabilities and odds of success, then we end up with a world that creates salvation by chaos. We can see that the plan overall will work but that the results for the individual will depend upon luck and chance as they live out their lives.
If we understand that where we are born and live is a result of our life in the pre-existence then to define free will and God's foreknowledge without reference to that reality results in a false understanding of those concepts.
I think that one of the weaknesses of your conclusions, as found in your otherwise excellant book, is that you have not adequetly accounted for the reality and effect of the pre-existence upon our situation in this life. We lived there and developed for millions and millions of years. Our development is not cast aside in order to come to earth and fulfill our destiny. This idea must be accounted for - do you not agree?
Thanks for your discussion,
George
George: It seems that I have misunderstood you. I don't deny that our character is somewhat already formed when we were born into this life because of our pre-existent experience -- but I deny that such a truth entails that our actions are predictable without error on that basis. As I explain in my book, such a supposition entails character determinism that renders us unfree in the sense that you appear to accept.
It seems to me that D&C 93:24 is open to the view that knowledge of things as they were, as they are and as they are to come entails that God knows the future as future and not as a determinate reality. It means that God knows that things are not yet fixed and are open except to the extent his plan is set. In other words, he knows things as they can be known, and he doesn't know the future as already established. In any event, envisioning God's knowledge of the future as you do entails that we do not have free will of the kind that allows us to choose among good and evil, life and death (among open alternatives).
Moreover, even if God knew the future "when he established the plan," such knowledge would not have been any use to him. First, if God has seen that X, then why would he need to plan? We plan only for what is not certain to be the case. Yet if God knows that X, God cannot deliberate as whether to bring about X or Y -- he cannot plan at all. So that feature of scripture that says he plans would have to be rejected.
Moreover, what good would it do for him to know that X when he "plans"? It will be the case that X regardless of what God plans and he cannot avoid it. Suppose that God wanted to bring about Y but has seen that X will be the case. It is incoherent that God sees that X will be the case but that he could bring about Y. Because it is true that X will be the case logically prior to God's doing anything, God cannot use the knowledge he has for any providential purposes. It follows that God's foreknowledge is useless to him.
Nor do I believe in "destiny," which is another word for fatalism. I suggest that you adopt a form of fatalism that is inimical to the gospel and to God's plan that left us free to choose for ourselves to act and not merely to be acted upon. It is a gift of the atonement in LDS thought. So I agree with you that the pre-existence must be kept in mind as we develop our understanding of the gospel -- I vehemently reject the view that everything is fated when we arrive as you seem to implicitly adopt.
Blake, thank you for taking the time to attempt to understand my position.
Let me discuss the other side of your proposal. First, I suggest that planning does not entail only possibilities. The kind of plans, for a crude example, that a woodworker uses shows the finished product before the project is even begun. There is no reason to believe that the word "plan" entails only contingencies and not certainties. This is especially true if it is a plan being presented for our consideration. I seldom hear a plan presented as a best guess or a hoped for outcome. It is more often a plan that is presented as an expected outcome. It is true that I cannot present a complicated plan that has certainty as a factor, but I am not a possessor of the attributes of God - at least not yet. In your book you suggest that there are statistical probabilites (my words not yours) for an outcome and that God is available for correction if the statistics don't work out. I can accept that notion, but would ask the question: What is the possibility that the plan will work out as God projects? I suggest that to hope that it is 50/50 that Jesus would actually work the atonement might have led me to vote with the other side. That is, a 50/50 proposition is not very faith promoting, is it? Why would not the probablity for God be 100%? I suggest that He has the attributes to accomplish that 100% certain understanding, and that this is the concept that is taught in the scriptures and by the leaders of the Church.
If not then a real problem is realized. A story was told of Pres McKay visiting his grandfather's (Father??) home in Scotland. He described how the missionaries had visited that home and converted his ancestor. He then stated that if that had not happened he would not be where he was at that time. If the missionaries had turned the other direction instead of visiting this particular home then perhaps Pres McKay would have been a shepard in northern Scotland instead of the President of the Church. The same sort of story could be told of us all. A series of actions, or even a single action, by someone could have seriously affected our individual salvation. You know what I mean - the old butterfly flapping his wings in Brazil. And that could have happened without our knowledge, let alone our participation. Responsibility for our salvation would have been taken from us,and for that matter the Savior and the Father, and cast to the chaotic winds of fate.
Do you see my point? That is not the kind of "Plan" that I would be anxious to have faith in for my salvation. Salvation becomes kinda like a giant Pachinko game. We put the balls into the top and they hit the pegs as they fall to the bottom. When they have all fallen to the bottom the statistical averages put them in a bell curve. But, and this is a big BUT, there is no predicting where I will end up as an individual. Perhaps at the end for salvation, perhaps at the end for damnation, and most likely fumbling along somewhere in the middle. You might suggest that occasionally the player (God) might hit the paddles and affect the outcome in some manner, but the results for an individual are still subject to chaotic results, and ignore that individuals status and attainments of the pre-existence. That would not be right.
I would be interested in your assesment of the problem I have presented.
As I see it the only solution for the proper application of pre-existent knowledge and the elimination of chaos is the complete and absolute foreknowlede of God. This foreknowledge based on His complete understanding of each of us and what we will do when given the choices.
It seems to me that we take two approaches to this question. You present the scripturally sound idea of agency and call it free will. I present the scripturally sound idea of the complete foreknowledge of God. You seem to find the two concepts incompatible and therefore reject the foreknowledge in favor of free will. Hence my accusation of your putting free will at the apex of desirable conditions to the detriment of foreknowledge. I, on the other hand, accept both concepts and attempt to reconcile them into one concept or idea.
Why would not the reconciliation of the two concepts be a good idea?
I look forward to your comments.
George
another comment.
What use would a plan be for the Father? It is the only way that He could allow our interactions to produce His purposes - the imortality and eternal life of man.
Fatalism. You understand better than I all that is entailed in the concept. I do not think that I accept this notion any more than you - but I do believe that what happens here is a continuation of what has gone before. I beleive that if this is the day to prepare to meet God then the day includes not only this mortal probation but the life after death before the judgement and ressurection. And in fact the pre-existene as well - for surely our life there was to prepare to come to earth so as to continue to prepare to meet God. The idea that this mortal life is the time to prepare is inherent in the fact that we can only prepare "now" as the past is over and done. But that does not mean that we did not do a whole bunch before we came here.
Sorry about the P.S.
George
George: The type of plan discussed in the scriptures is not the kind of already finished plan of which you speak. First, JS interpreted Genesis 1:1 to mean that "the gods met together and concocted a plan." They are in the process of coming up with and planning, not just sitting down and looking over a finished product. Further, you miss the point that even when you look at a plan to build a house somebody had to come up with the the plan in the first place. If it were already determined how the house would be, there would be no need for anyone to come up with the plan. So you jump to the finished plan rather than the process of coming up with the plan -- which misses the entire point.
Second, you assert that foreknowledge and free-will are compatible -- but you merely assert it without showing how it could be. I give an argument (Argument B) showing that they care not logically compatible. You must deal with that argument.
More importantly, you have ignored what I said about God's foreknowledge being useless to him. It is essential to interact with these objections -- otherwise, you must ignore the dialogue which is the point of these posts, isn't it? If God knows that X will occurr, then God is stuck with X and he cannot change it. God is rendered powerless to bring about anything except what actually comes about. So we end up with a God who is rather powerless and has useless knowledge. That is not an inspiring view to me -- and it is certainly not the God revealed in scripture.
As for everything being chaotic -- well, the scriptures say a lot about God's ongoing battle with chaos. However, I just don't see the chaos in the sense that you speak of it. God inspires us and we respond, but he can bring about his plan. If President McKay's father hadn't been where he was, then Pres. Mckay may not have been born where he was. There are so many variables that only an infinitely resourceful mind could handle them all -- but that is precisely what I believe God to be. Like a master chess player, he may not know the moves his opponent will make, but he knows that whatever moves are made he can meet them and win the game (especially if I were the opponent). Which God is more knowledgeable and resourceful? The God you present who is stuck with a fixed reaity that he cannot change, or the God I believe is presented in scripture who responds to the innumerable possibilities with infinite resourcefulness?
Blake; I am sorry that I have taken so long to respond to the latest posts. Sunday is a busy time with all the meetings and family time. Family time is especially important to me as I am able to interact with all of my grandchildren - and that is a lot more fun than posting on this or any forum.
It seems that there are a few postings missing from the website. I think that I have responded to the last post I see above. I have tried to respond to questions asked but apparently am not clear in my writing.
I would like to respond to this statement: Blake says "Second, you (that's me) assert that foreknowledge and free-will are compatible -- but you merely assert it without showing how it could be. I give an argument (Argument B) showing that they are not logically compatible. You must deal with that argument."
If I understand the scenario's properly I would describe them as follows:
Scenario A. God at time point T1 has knowledge that at time point T2 Georgie-Porgie - GP - will act by choosing action A. Because God knows that fact, and is infallible, then GP has no choice in the matter and free will is denied him.
I do not disagree with that discription. I accept your argument that complete fore-knowledge does not allow for an absolute free will. However I do have a problem with your solution.
Scenario B - the solution. God at time point T1 understands all of the options and the probabilities of Georgie-Porgie choosing from options A, B, C,.... at time point T2. God also has a plan that He finds desirable to be implemented. At T2 it is necessary for the success of the plan that GP choose option A, and only option A. God sees that GP is about to choose, at T2, option Q. Therefore God intervenes to cause GP to choose option A and all is well with the plan.
The problem? Under this scenario the free will of GP is compromised by the necessary action of God.
In scenario A GP's free will is compromised by the foreknowledge of God, while in scenario B GP's free will is compromised by the required action of God.
In either case free will is not available to our friend Georgie-Porgie! And in each case your concern for the freedom of God to act is also compromised as you assert that God loses control in scenario A and that God would be required to act in scenario B. It would seem that free will has been lost for both parties under each option.
How is that a solution to the problem of God not allowing free will in this mortal existence?
Now it is not fair that I do not offer an alternative solution, but first I ask if I have properly presented, albeit simply, the problem and your solution? And if I did how can I fail to come to the conclusion that scenario B is not a solution, but rather just a subsitute for the original problem?
If free will does not exist under either scenario then we must move to an alternative description and solution.
I hope that I make sense even if you disagree with me. I look forward to your comments.
Best wishes,
George
George: Why believe that God ever has only one way to accomplish his purposes? I believe that God is infinitely resourceful and has back-up plans of the sort: "if JS loses the 116, then I'll provide the Small Plates to take their place," or "if Adam sins, then I will send a redeemer." God will accomplish his purposes and there must be a zillion ways to get there (if not more!). Assume that there is only one way; well, then God will either allow us to bring it about freely or, if we will not, then he will bring it about forcefully (like possibly the Flood, or killing the Israelites when they made a golden calf, etc.) I am open to both possiblities, but my view is that there are always a multitude of ways for God to achieve his purposes so he need not destroy agency to accomplish his purposes.
Blake:
You have not responded to the concerns I have for your solution. Free Will/agency is compromised for both man and for God under that scenario.
Now to your latest point, to suggest that a redeemer is only necessary IF Adam sins is to say that God has no plan at all. Maybe a divine wish, maybe a vague hope, perhaps a strong suggestion, but no real plan. It is to deny the capacity of God to formulate a plan and see it through to the finish. Yet we all choose to follow a plan. What sort of plan could we have been choosing if even the idea of our existence is in question. The plan you suggest does not leave much room for faith that it would be successful for each individual participant. If Adam had not transgressed we would not have been able to come to earth and the plan of God would have been eternally twarted. If the first born of the Father, the Savior had failed to complete the atonement then justice would have claimed us all. There is no question that this is a correct conclusion. By accepting the plan we expressed faith in the ability of God to accomplish His purposes.
To suggest that God is unable to formulate a plan of salvation and present it to His children is turning this discussion in an entirely different direction and that sort of direction is not consistent with Mormon Thought and the attributes of God.
I do not beleive in "back up" plans. Are you suggesting that if Jesus Christ had not been willing to complete the atonement there was a back up Savior waiting to take his place. Or perhaps Jesus was the third string Savior and the first two failed in their attempts at atonement? I think you would have a tough time convincing anyone that this sort of thinking is consistent with the scriptures or with mormon thought. We had to have faith in the Father's plan and that included the idea of failure, not accomadation. If in fact God had not known what He was doing and Jesus had failed in his atonement then we would have been lost without recourse. That is one reason why it was important for the Father to truly KNOW what He was doing and what would happen.
How can God have only an idea of what He wants to accomplish and then bring it about "forcefully" and still maintain free will and/or agency? How can God force us to act freely? That is very close to being an oxymoron. There is no question that God can force us to act in the way He desires, but that hardly preserves agency.
God had a plan, we accepted it by acting on the principles of moral agency, it is being implemented by the fact of His supreme will and foreknowledge. That is consistent with the scriptures and with mormon thought.
Geez, Blake, is this notion a serious suggestion?
I wonder if you have a response to my concerns with your solution?
George
Geroge: God back and read again. Free will is definitely not compromised on what I suggest. We are free to choose among alternatives. God will not do anything to compromise our agency unless it is essential to his plan -- and I have suggested that it never is necessary to compromise our agency. He always has options open to him to accomplish his purposes without destroying our agency. I only suggested that scripture states that at times God has rather severely affected the agency of some (since I believe that death rather forecloses our ability to exercise agency in this sphere of existence!). So you have fundamentally miscontrued what I have said.
Moreover, to call Christ a third-rate Savior is offensive -- and to attribute such a notion to me is non-sense. If Christ had failed, then the world may well be have been wasted. He didn't and he was worthy of the Father's and our trust and faith in him. However, the notion of a back-up plan merely means that God is resourceful enough to respond to whatever contingencies arise. You may reject the idea, but it is clear that the Small Plates were a back up plan (unless you believe that Martin Harris was fated to lose the 116 pages).
Now for a scenario where God's back-up plan does not involve coercion. God himself will bring about atonement if we freely sin; but it doesn't follow that he causes us to sin. He has merely provided a way out if we do. It is not fate that we sin. It is, however, incredibly probable. So God has provided a way to deal with our free actions. It was God himself who brought about atonement; but it in no way follows that we are thereby unfree. To the contrary, we are free precisely because of the atonement.
George, it is time to read more carefully and not to jump to conclusions. When I give a post showing that God always has a non-coercive altenative open to him to accomplish his purposes, and you respond by assuming that I am arguing that he intervenes coercively, I conclude that you have not read very carefully or that I just haven't expressed myself as well as would serve. So yes, I have a response to your concern -- it is based on a misunderstanding on your part and calls for no solution at all.
Blake - you used the word forcefully. Blake - you used the term back up plans. Blake - you are the one that argues that free will is the important issue.
When I apply your concepts to the Savior you respond that I am offensive to the Savior, yet I am just applying your concepts to His atonement.
I am sorry that the only response you have is to suggest that I have not read carefully. I will try not to make that mistake again. Perhaps you will want to go back to your interchange on this forum that was there before I asked the questions.
They were sincere questions. I do not think you have properly considered at least three points in your book:
1. How God's intervention cause as much disruption to free will as does foreknowledge,
2. The real impact of the pre-existence on this life,
3. The impact of a chaotic plan of salvation on the lives of individuals.
And then your next to last post just seemed almost irrational.
I had hoped to have a discussion about these issues. It is apparent that you have not the time or interest to do so.
Sorry about the intrusion.
George
George: I didn't mean to PO you. You simply attributed to me things that I not only don't assert but that I expressly deny. God's intervention isn't coercive -- it is a way of acting in the world that respects free agency and yet insures the realization of his plan. (Although as I admit I am puzzled when it appears that God acts coercively such as when he killed all those Israelites who made the golden calf -- that is coercive and robs agency in this life if anything does). To suggest that I am not willing to dialogue seems rather inaccurate and unfair to me -- but you are entitled to your views. I would rather lose an argument than a friend -- and I thought we were just discussing the issues. But you are free to react as you see fit.
Blake, You asked that I engage your argument for a solution and suggested that I had not done so. So I described as best as I could your idea of the problem and the solution.
I feel that your solution simply creates a new problem of God intervening and thereby compromising free will. You seem to feel that free will is crucial and are willing to deny the doctine of God's foreknowledge to support free will.
I asked you if I described it properly and for your comments. I would still like to hear an explanation and a confirmation as to the correctness of my simple description.
My solution to the problem takes into account the foreknowledge of God and the need for moral agency. We have not even gotten into a discussion of that - which is proper as your book is the topic of discussion.
If you would like to continue then I would as well. So I ask -how does my critique of your solution fail?
How is free will preserved by the intervention by God in the free choices made under your scenario?
George
George,
I read through your exchange with Blake last night and I thought I might join the conversation. I have some comments/questions about the assumptions you have made.
1. You are assuming that there is such a thing as: At T2 it is necessary for the success of the plan that GP choose option A
I just don't think this is ever the case. You later say you don't believe in back-up plans and you are free to feel that way, but I see no reason why we should not believe in a God of backup plans. The scriptures seem full of examples of backup plans being utilized to me. On top of that, there seems to be all sorts of ways God could accomplish his purposes without ever violating agency or utilizing compulsion. We have discussed this topic very recently at other blogs. (See here
2. You have made some major assumptions about our pre-mortal life that not all agree with. You said: We have some freedom in this life, but the real agency and free will was entailed in the decisions and actions taken in the eons we lived before coming to this world. This is of course not a fact,but an opinion. I believe the agency we experience in this life is probably the same as the agency we experienced before this life. We know next to nothing of that existence though so it is going to be hard to defend your position based solely on your take of what life was like then.
3. You imply that anything but a fixed-future leads to chaos. That seems to underestimate God to me. I think he is powerful enough to stave off chaos without the future being as fixed as the past.
Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me interjecting here but I thought it might add to the exchange.
Sorry I haven't contributed to the current discussion. I haven't had time but will touch on these matters hopefully tonight.
George, you asked for the post where I sketched out a view like yours. It was in this post. But be aware it was very fragmentary and very problematic in the way I presented it. (I'd probably delete about half of what I said now) Here's an other one you might be interested in. I want to really get at Heidegger's ongoing engagement with Freedom. Those are less accessible to someone not already at least somewhat familiar with Continental thought. If you are interested, here are a few of those. (here, here, here, and here)
Geoff, I am happy and grateful to have you join the conversation. I was beginning to think that I had prempted the thread and driven the rest of you elsewhere. I am anxious to hear and respond to your views. I have taken short exerpts from your post to respond to.
"1. You are assuming that there is such a thing as: At T2 it is necessary for the success of the plan that GP choose option A"
George: It would seem that some things are crucial. For example if Adam had not transgressed then he would not have left the garden and you and I would not have been having this discussion. I am sure that we could both come up with similiar scenarios that require a specific action to occur. This is especially true if you accept the idea of the Savior being the designated redeemer. Surely there were certain actions that needed to occur to allow His mortal life to proceed as it did, and surely He had to make certain decisions.
"You later say you don't believe in back-up plans and you are free to feel that way, but I see no reason why we should not believe in a God of backup plans."
George: Well for one thing the world would be so full of backup situations, such as the backup for the lost 116 pages, that we would not have room to contain them. But more importantly we would not need to show faith in the Plan presented by the Father if we knew that no matter what happened there would be alternatives to cover the errors in the plan. Blake is offended by my extending the backup plans to the atonement of the Savior, but why would that not be as necessary as any other crucial situation?
"The scriptures seem full of examples of backup plans being utilized to me. On top of that, there seems to be all sorts of ways God could accomplish his purposes without ever violating agency or utilizing compulsion. We have discussed this topic very recently at other blogs. (See here "
George: I would point out the tentative nature of the word your used - "seem." There is no reason to not accept the idea that what appears to be a backup is part of the orginal perfect plan.
"2. You have made some major assumptions about our pre-mortal life that not all agree with. You said: We have some freedom in this life, but the real agency and free will was entailed in the decisions and actions taken in the eons we lived before coming to this world. This is of course not a fact,but an opinion. I believe the agency we experience in this life is probably the same as the agency we experienced before this life. We know next to nothing of that existence though so it is going to be hard to defend your position based solely on your take of what life was like then."
George: Part of the fun of this exchange is the realization that I will have a difficult time defending many positions I have taken for granted for many years. But in this case I am on stronger ground for the difference between living in the pre-existence in the presence of God and living in this mortal world with a vail over our memory and mind is very significant. It seems (there is that word) to me that in order for us to make informed decisions in the pre-existence we would have to fully understand the plan we were considering. Our very converstation points out that we do not have that same level of understanding here on earth.
"3. You imply that anything but a fixed-future leads to chaos. That seems to underestimate God to me. I think he is powerful enough to stave off chaos without the future being as fixed as the past."
George: Please understand that I am not speaking of overall chaos, but rather the way it applies to the individual. We gained a certain status and level of understanding in the world before. We all are born and live in different circumstances. The effect of those circumstances are crucial to our development and salvation. God could have us born in any of the available circumstances. Why would he not put us in a situation that would be best for us and based on our previous life and attainments? I think a plan ordered for our own situation and that of every other individual is what God created.
"Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me interjecting here but I thought it might add to the exchange."
Thanks for your input - may it continue.
George
http://www.splendidsun.com/wp/index.php/2005/03/14/72
The discussion on this blog parallels much of what we are speaking of here. But those on that blog do not fully account for the pre-existence on the effect on this life at all. (although I did not read every post)
I beleive and think I can support it, that in the pre-existence we exercised perfect agency. Why would that not be the case? We knew the choices, the consequences, the will of God in the matter,and we had the freedom to choose. Once we made the decision then we lost the option to do otherwise - which means that our free will was, to a degree, compromised by our actions. The same thing happens here in that every decision we make eliminates the alternate choices. With the vail over our mind we cannot exercise either complete moral agency or free will. It simply cannot exist in the world we live in.
George
George: I doubt that we exercise "perfect" agency in the pre-existence since there were many types of experiences we could not grasp without first having a body. It seems to me that cognizance of the choices open to us is one of the concommitants of free agency. Moreover, it seems that ability to grasp what decisions we would make was severly limited in the pre-existence because, for example, though we agreed to experience physical suffering and pain in life, we hadn't yet experienced them and therefore literally didn't know what we were agreeing to. My friend Mark Gustavson has written a long paper on the issue of whether a pre-existent person could consent to the evils that we experience in this life -- and I think that he has made a pretty good case that without the experiential knowledge of physical pain we couldn't consent because we couldn't grasp what we were discussing any more than a 5 year old could consent to a possibly mortal operation.
Second, I do not advocate, as you seem to believe, that God insures his plan by coercing us to cooperate with it. To the contrary, God's back up plans always respect our agency --as I showed with the atonement as a back up plan to the misuse of agency (and indeed the very ground of agency). So what you pose as a problem is a non-starter from my perspective because I don't advocate what you assert that I do. I should not have introduced the mere logical possibility of coercion because you have taken it as an integral part of my view when it isn't. I forget when I speak with non-philosophers that the logical status of a claim is often difficult to disentangle from the assertion that this logical possibility obtains (I had the same problem with Geoff BTW). I believe that God has the sheer power to coerce us if he were to choose to do so; I just don't believe that he ever makes that choice even though he could. So what you see as a problem just isn't.
OK Blake, I think I begin to understand you when you say that God does not coerce us. I appologise that I am new to this type of discussion,and appreciate your patience. But what do you mean when you say that God can intervene to insure the success of his plan if that is not very much like coercion?
Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought that you indicated that God would act if the potential courses of action would lead to the twarting of his plan.
The real point I am trying to lead to is that I perceive that your solution, including intervention on the part of God, does nothing to preserve agency any more than an acceptance of the foreknowledge of God. Both affect free will and therefore why would you reject the scripturally sound position of foreknowledge?
I believe that there could be another position that preserves both agency and foreknowledge.
George
George: What I mean is that God has the resources to insure his plan without coercing us or curcumventing our wills. Consider an analogy. You are playing a master chess player. He doesn't know what moves you will make. But he knows how to counter any moves that you make with moves that will eventually win the game. He doesn't need to take away your freedom to make the moves that you do to insure that he will win the chess match, he just has to be resourceful enough to know what moves to make to match you and take your pieces. So it is with God. He doesn't know what free choices we will make, but he has a way to respond that insures the realization of his plan. For example, the atonement is a way to deal with sin -- and it doesn't entail taking away our agency nor is it coercive. However, it definitely consists in God's intervening to insure the realization of his plan.
George,
There is another discussion on this subject going on at my blog as well. See here. In that post I go one step further to call the absolute foreknowledge and pernicious and faith-crippling false doctrine (how's that for some pot-stirring?)
Regarding our pre-mortal life: There is anything but consensus on what happened there. Some people believe we were in some atemporal state until we can to earth. Blake has another vision of it. Some have taught (including Heber C. Kimball) that rather than a premortal world there have been innumerable pre-mortal worlds -- all very similar to this one. Rather than go into this subject, I will just say that any conclusion we draw based on a view of our premortal life will be tenuous at best. These are details that the Lord simply hasn’t revealed to the world yet.
Regarding contingencies: I believe God is the ultimate predictor. He surely predicts the future accurately almost all the time (see the Splendid Sun discussion or this link for more on that). So while backup plans are always in place, they may not be needed all that often. And yes, I think that it is no logical stretch to say God had a back-up plan for the incredibly unlikely event that Jesus did not complete the atonement.
Blake,
I think you are letting yourself off too easily when it comes to this coercion possibility you have repeatedly asserted. My status a non-philosopher does not change the fact that God coercing or compelling us in anything is contrary to LDS scripture. Here you go -- I'll play philosopher for a moment regarding coercion.
C1. If the priesthood really is the power of God, and
C2. If section 121 of the D&C is accurate, then
C3. "No power or influence can... be maintained by virtue of the priesthood" (D&C 121:41), therefore
C4. God cannot logically coerce or compel people in order to ensure his plans are fulfilled.
Therefore it was not a problem with you talking with non-philosophers but rather a problem with your statement that God logically coerce us to fulfill his plans...
How'd I do? ; )
Blake - in every chess game I have played, and I was the city champ at age 12, my basic goal was to influence the choices the other player could make. I would do everything I could to directly affect his freedom to act contrary to my will.
I do not see how God can act to enforce His will and His plan without affecting the actions and will of those that would act contrary to that plan. No matter how you say it, when God acts to affect the outcome He affects the free will of those that are involved. I understand that you assert otherwise, I just do not see how it is possible. Every time God acts He takes away certain options and perhaps creates others. That means that we have different choices than if He had not acted. That we can act with freedom based on the new choices is a given, but it is not the same as having the freedom to choose from a greater array of options.
Now please understand that I do not think that is a bad thing. In fact in the absence of absolute foreknowledge, that which you assert would be acceptable to me, but with the caveat that you would need to define free will in a very special manner. Absolute free will could not exist in that enviroment.
Since free will is either not truly possible, or has to be defined in a special manner, in this mortal existance I need to look for another way to allow for agency to be truly a part of our life.
I would take your position of God acting to ensure the success of His plan and apply it a bit differently. If we are to be placed on this earth in a set of circumstances that differ from place to place and time to time, then why would God simply place us without concern for the outcome. Surely He could order our birth in order to facilitate the outcome. If that were the case it would be better if He fully understood who we were and what our capabilities and personalities, etc were like. With this knowledge He could arrange His plan to maximize the possibilities of success. Would you agree?
Even without absolute foreknowledge God could greatly improve the chances of success with careful placement of His children on the earth.
Make sense?
George
Geoff; My understanding of the pre-existence is based on quite a bit of information that describes what happened. That some spirits were greater than others tells us that some growth occurred. That the same order existed in the pre-existence exists here on earth. And other references can be cited.
I beleive that we were raised in the Fathers household for a period of time and then sent to a pre-existent earth to develop as much as we could before we were sent to the earth. So I agree that there were multiple pre-existent worlds, but all in the single celestial realm of the Father.
I understand that it is speculation with some real information as well, but then that is the fun of it. I hold no one to beleive as I do, but I think that I am generally safe in my belief.
As to the idea of a back up Savior. I, like Blake, find that idea completely unacceptable. To suggest that no matter what happens there will be a Savior is to suggest that faith in Jesus Christ was not necessary in the war in heaven. Afterall if it does not work out someone else will come along. It is also to suggest that there are several other men that were begotten by the Father and lived sinless lives both in the pre-existent world and in this mortal life as well in order to qualify as a redeemer whenever needed. Besides the idea that there have been several attempts at the atonement that did not work and Jesus was the backup, maybe way down the line, just does not work for me.
This is speculation that destroys faith.
Best wishes,
George
Sorry to have three posts in a row, but I had an "aha" moment last evening as I was thinking on our discussion.
I not only can see the points being made by Blake regarding our mortal life, but find them in a real sense not too different from what I have been thinking and proposing.
If God can interact with man in a positive way then that interaction is no more limiting than the interaction we have with each other. Now if I understand Blake's position he sees this interaction happening on an ongoing basis,whereas I, at least initialy, saw this as a creative, as in organizing, function of the Father when He set the plan in motion.
It would seem that in order for the Father to be truly effective He would have to see the effects of His actions - atleast in the short run - and this would certainly be true for Blakes scenario. In order to avoid unintended consequences the Father would have to be able to see the consequences of His actions on the Plan. To the degree He was able to predict these consequences the less He would have to intervene, in that with that ability He could act in the most effective manner.
This would, in fact, protect the individual's salvation from the effect of chaos. God could act to protect the interests of individuals as well as the plan as a whole. By this I mean that our salvation would not be negatively affected by situations completely out of our control.
This would still limit free will to some degree, but not agency. This notion is also compatible with foreknowledge, in that it is entirely possible, in my mind, for God to foreknow how and when He would need to intervene. In fact as I suggested above, the discussion would center on the idea of how much is possible for God to know of the future and the future consequences of His actions.
Whereas Blake has been speaking of interventions, I have been speaking of circumstances. Both are compatible with each other and, in fact, form parts of the same whole. The first "intervention" of God would be the decision of when and where we are born and into what circumstances. Where we are placed are going to have great impact on the choices available and the decisions we make, as well as the future interventions that may be necessary.
I would like to consider further Geoff's "horrible" doctrine of foreknowledge, but I save it for another post.
Do I make sense with my "aha" conclusions?
George
George and Geoff: It seems to me that we are in substantial agreement regarding whether God would ever coerce us -- he won't. However, my view is that God cannot be a morally perfect being if he cannot do wrong in any sense because moral freedom entails ability to do what is morally prohibited. The fact that God won't doesn't mean that God lacks the power to do so. Yet since it is merely a logical point to begin with, it isn't a feature of my view of divine providence -- although it is a feature of my view of the divine attributes. (So George I reject that in every instance God's power must be an exercise of priesthood power and therefore I reject premise 1 of your argument).
George: I agree that free will is never exercised outside of a context and that the context may limit the options open to us. However, God's influence need not ever be compelling or coercive and is exercised in such a way as leave us free. For example, when I seek to persuade my son to drive carefully by pointing out the dangers of driving fast, I may influence him but I certainly don't coerce him to drive more slowly.
Blake; I am not sure which is my premise one, but it makes little difference as I have come to agree with your premise about the nature of God's involvement in our lives. I found that I was limiting my understanding to the two views that I had formulated with a desire to get an either/or decision. I have come to see a third possibility that is very attractive and consistent with most of what I have beleived in the past. As I suggested I saw God's intervention in the creative process while you saw that creative process and God's intervention continuing throughout the Plan here on earth. I have come to agree with you on that point and therefore remove my objection to not only the negative affect on free will, but the concern I had for randomness in the individual salvation process.
However, I still have a concern for your denial of the Father's foreknowledge.
I would like to continue the discussion along those lines with your cooperation.
Blake/Geoff; before we continue are there any other comments about what we have so far covered?
George
George: My view is that that God does have forekowledge but it is not absolute and he can predict the future but he can change his mind in living interaction with his prophets. If God had absolute forknowledge, then it is my position that: (1) his foreknowledge would be useless to him because he couldn't change what he has seen will be the case and thus he would be powerless to bring about anything except what actually occurs (his foreknowledge is thus providentially useless to him); (2) absolute foreknowledge is incompatible with libertarian free will; and (3) there are scriptures that say that God changes his mind and that persons sometimes act in ways that are contrary to what he thought would happen -- both of which strongly imply limited foreknowledge.
Blake, isn't it your position that God's foreknowledge is merely knowledge that he has the power to do something and that he wants to do it? Is that accurately foreknowledge given that God as a free agent can change his mind?
To use your example from the blog New Cool Thang consider Jonah. If God says he is going to destroy Ninevah, he clearly has the power. So it seems you'd call that foreknowledge. Yet, being a free agent, God changes is mind. But that means that he didn't really know since for God to know X at t1 it must be true at t1 that X. But clearly it isn't true.
Unless God is not free in a Libertarian sense, I'm not sure how you can believe that he has any foreknowledge at all. Except for things that are lawful in nature which God doesn't have the power to change. (Assuming you believe there is any phenomena that would fit that characterization)
According to Section 93 the very essence of the Father is Intelligence. The Glory of God is Intelligence, or in other words Truth and light. It seems to suggest that in large part it is this trait that defines what God is. It is not something we can easily change or dismiss.
Truth is further defined as the knowledge of things as they were, as they are, and as they will be. That seems to be a straight forward statement. Forgive me, I know this is not new to you.
I accept the idea that God can only know what is possible to know. I believe that we must define foreknowledge within the confines of a temporal God, even as there may be some differences between His temporal and mine. I also understand you point about how foreknowledge affects Libertarian Free Will. I am willing to say that LFW is very close to agency, but misses a bit, and therefore I am not concerned about foreknowleges affect on it in the same way you are.
There is no question that the scriptures and the prophets make statements about God's Omni-everything, including foreknowledge.
Although you can give me examples of God changing His mind and how His commandments and prophecies are conditional, I can also give you prophecies that are not conditional and are necessary to occur. Isaiah 53 and the prophecies of the Savior's life come to mind. Samuel the Lamanite and his prediction as the time of the signs. I am sure you could come up with others as well. So we cannot get in a mode of trading examples of how this or that supports our view without acknowledging the other evidence to the contrary. The definition must account for both sets of evidence.
I thought in your book the discussion of middle knowledge was leading to a proper and useful definition of foreknowledge. I understand that we cannot use the term middle knowledge because of the limitations set upon its normal use, however it seems to be that a modified definition of the term would be useful in allowing for both concerns yet also providing with how God can be fully aware of future events.
What say you about Section 93 and the use of a modified middle knowledge definition?
George
Clark & George: Good comments. It seems to me that God has foreknowledge that is certain in the sense that he knows his plan will be fulfilled. That is a form of foreknowledge; though I agree that it is not foreknowledge in the sense that God foresees the future as if it were presently in existence.
God doesn't want everyone in heaven (that sounds strange I know); rather, he wants everyone in heaven (or the celestial kingdom) who freely chooses to be there. We are now in the process of seeing who chooses to be there. Because I don't believe that the scriptures intend to give discursive defintions (they are not onto-theological) I don't believe that taking statements of the type in D&C 93 can be seen as definitional. Rather, it seems to me that we see how things are by seeing how God interacts with us. Although, I would note that if God knows all "things" in the future, then those things that are not yet "things" need not be known - so if we are going to play the onto-theological language game with such language there is a straightforward way of construing it so that it doesn't entail foreknowledge.
Blake; as I understand the concept of middle knowledge - at least the part that I can agree with - the idea is that God with all His resources and knowledge is able to accurately predict the future and therefore "knows" what will happen. I understand that there is more to the concept, but I likely would reject other parts of the concept.
As I pointed out in an earlier post my take would be that if we were to assign to such knowledge a probability of accuracy, I would assign a 100% pobability to God's expectation.
The usefulness of this to God is that it would allow Him to fulfill His plan and purposes. In addition He would be able to present the plan to His children and give them an assurance that if they would act in faith it would be accomplished.
Now I understand that in your scenario God would be able to accomplish His purposes as well. But in my view the scriptures tell us of a foreknowledge that is part of God's very essence. So it seems to be necessary to include foreknowledge in the discussion of a Mormon concept of God rather than arguing against its possibility.
If I shoot a gun I know it will impact and I do not have the freedom to call back the bullet. In this respect I have some sort of acceptable middle knowledge and can act as though impact had already occurred. Pretty crude explanation as to how God might do it, but the principle might be the same. It would, of course, increase by magnitudes of difficulty if agency is involved with the participants. But God could handle it.
There seems to me to be virtue in accepting the statements so often given regarding God's attributes in this issue.
Can you explain how you answer my concerns?
George
Blake, it seems that response avoids the question. The issue is how, given Libertarian Free Will, God could possibly know his plan would be fulfilled. That was Elder McConkie's main argument against those denying foreknowledge. While the way he presented the argument was flawed, it seems to me that the basic objection holds. The issue isn't whether God foresees the future. The issue is whether the fulfillment of the plan depends upon a free agent. If it does then by your own arguments God can't know that the plan will be fulfilled.
The problem with your interpretation of D&C 93 seems to be that the "things" God knows of the future is an empty set, rendering the phrase problematic.
Clark: I don't believe it begs the question at all. God has certain knowledge of all those things that he has determined he will bring about. He doesn't have knowledge of future contingents based upon acts of free agents. So the set of "things" in the future in D&C 93 is populated by logically certain truths, physically determined truths and truths arising from God's free knowledge or the things that he has declared he will bring about himself.
Blake, see my response in the other thread. To me the above claim works if and only if God isn't a free agent. Otherwise his acts are among those which are future contingents based upon acts of free agents. He can at best say that he wants in the future to behave in a certain fashion. But unless there is something permanent he can't say that he will act in a certain fashion.
Clark: I just wanted to make a comment on your view of "free will" (if that is what it is). You rely on your holy trinity, Heidegger, Derrida and Nietzsche, to frame your view of free will. It seems to me that referring to their works for what you have in mind involves a distortion that makes it difficult to track what what you mean. First, none of them believed in a pre-existence or in a quantum fluctuation as the birth of our pocket universe (or anything close to it). So framing your view in terms of theirs (or merely referring to what they say as if it could be isomorphic with what you say) is not only confusing but way off the mark.
On the other hand, since (many) LDS believe in uncreated intelligences, the source theory of libertarian free will (where we are the initiators or first causes of our free choices) seems to fit rather well. In fact, arguments have been made that for such free will to obtain we must be uncreated -- although it is generally intended as a reductio.
Blake, I'm not quite sure what your criticism is. None of them address one way or the other physics at all. (Heidegger speaks positively of science, but doesn't really get into it beyond warning of totalizing discourse) So saying that they didn't believe in certain elements of modern physics while true, doesn't seem too relevant.
With pre-existence you are also right. Indeed one might argue that Heidegger the reality of death is very important in Being and Time. However I'd just note that the argument doesn't require death in absolute terms, merely the phenomenological experience of nothingness. That is, the dread of end. That's an important point.
Your argument seems to be that since I don't believe everything those figures believe (since all three are atheists of one sort or an other) that nothing I refer to can be isomorphic with what they believe. While true to a point, I think even people who adopt strong meaning holism would agree that we can separate out ideas and arguments for use without necessarily adopting all ideas.
So this seems an odd claim attack to make. But I'll certainly agree that I don't agree with everything those figures (or any other figure) argue. For instance I'm very much a Peircean, but I'm not sure I believe his ideas regarding free will. (Which are much closer to what you've argued for)
Regarding intelligences and sources, I think things are more open there than you suggest. I'm not sure I buy it in the totalizing way of Aristotilean first causes and as individual first causes. But I think they can (and should) be read in a more open sense.
Clark: I'm not attacking you. I have way too much respect to do that. So if what I wrote felt like an attack, I apologize. I was just pointing out that the way you have gone about explicating your view is confusing to me (and it may well be my deficit rather than yours).
Oh, I didn't take it as an attack of a personal nature. Probably poor word choice on my part. I was on the run out to check some buildings for a new company I'm starting up so I wrote the above rather quickly. By attack I meant more in an argumentative sense. i.e. a line of attack or a line of argument.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. Perils of electronic communication. And let me say I enjoy our conversations tremendously even if we do disagree on a few fundamental issues. But, like you, I'm never quite sure on those fundamental issues exactly how much we actually disagree either. (Despite earnestly trying to move beyond the general ideas of Whitehead's thought)
Blake, when will your Vol. 2 be published. I am waiting on the first volume, but I cannot wait for the other two. I am beside myself with excitement.
By the way, I read all of your comments at FAIR in six parts and am fascinated. You are indeed insightful. I shall read all that you put forth. I learned so much from your writings. My knowledge and understanding has expanded. Have you read Stelter's book, Particle Waves and Crisis in America. If not I will send you a copy if you do not have it. I would like your comments.
Ron: Thanks for the encouragment! The second volume will be out at the end of this month. I have finished the galleys and an index is now being prepared. Once that is done it will go the printer and we will be done!
I haven't read Stelter's book - but I would be pleased to so!
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