Philosophical Vegan Forum

This is my objection to arguments that hold people accountable to their God via free will.

I don't quite even understand free will, but I will still argue against it. So I guess I should give a sort of definition. I will argue against any free will definition that implies this: the choices we make hold us accountable to some sort of Abrahamic God. So of course I will accept by fiat that there is some sort of Abrahamic God, and he has the sort of properties that are common of the variations of Abrahamic Gods like omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence and some sort of heaven and hell system.

Alright lets get to my objection. First I argue choice is dependent on at least four different factors of circumstances. For now I say they are environment, knowledge, physical condition, and motivation. For instance I could not choose to type on the computer this moment if I did not have a computer in front of me, so the environment is sufficient for typing at the computer to be an option of choice. I could not choose to type at this computer if I had no idea how to access this computer, so my knowledge is sufficient for typing at the computer to be an option of choice for me. I could not choose to type at this computer at the moment if I had no arms, and nothing to accommodate me, so my physical condition is sufficient for typing at the computer to be an option of choice for me. I could not choose to type at this computer If I had no reason or desire to do so, so my motivation is sufficient for typing at the computer to be an option of choice for me. The last one might be a little iffy at first so I will try to drive home this condition. I have a lot of knowledge of what might kill me, and my environment is such that I have access to lots of things that could kill me. My physical condition is also capable of causing myself death. So, why don't I choose to kill myself? Because I have more motivation to choose other options, like continuing to live. Those are the four main things choice is dependent on that I can think of right now.

Next knowledge, motivation, physical condition and environment are all influenced by each other. We get our motivation, and knowledge from our environment and physical condition. Also, our environment and physical condition are set at first but through knowledge and motivation and other circumstances they can also change and so our choices available to us and our ability to choose those choices constantly change.

So that being the case we are limited in choice to these factors, and choices will be ever changing when these factors change. So I will argue that either there is some sort of combination of circumstances of environment, knowledge, physical condition, and or motivation in some possible world that will lead a specific person to believe in god yet still keep whatever it is that still makes that person that person, whether it be soul or personality or character, ect. or there is not.

Option one: There is a possible world where circumstances are such that a non-believing person would believe in God and still be the same person. If that is the case then couldn't God make these worlds for everyone?

Option two: There is no such possible world under any circumstance where a non-believing person can believe in God and still be the same person. Then where is the freewill there? It seems that some people are made to disbelieve regardless of circumstance.

With that in mind how could such a God with the properties of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence make a world where some people are limited by their circumstances and unable to believe and others are not. How could a God such like that condemn people that would have believed under different circumstances?

How could I be held accountable by God if God knows what worlds I would believe in him or not and he puts me in one he knew would be insufficient for me to believe? If God could not put me in any world of belief sufficient circumstances then how could I be held accountable to God if no matter what happened in my life in any possible world I would sin? Therefore If God has the properties I described and choice is as I described I cannot be held accountable by God for my disbelief.

Under this God's given properties and my analysis of choice freewill does not exist.
Note this is not really a direct argument from determinism because there could be many different worlds that would lead to a belief in god some far more likely than others. This is just an argument from the analysis of what choice is dependent on and the properties of an abrahmic God.

This has been an argument floating in my head for a while but I never really cared to take the time to flush it out. What do you think? Is it decent? Does it avoid the attacks arguments from determinism gets? Can I add something more to it? Anything need clarification? What are some possible counter arguments. Thanks.

This is a very well thought out and justified argument for Free will arguments. I'll cite the forum thread when I get into a situation when I'll need to

dan1073 wrote:This is a very well thought out and justified argument for Free will arguments. I'll cite the forum thread when I get into a situation when I'll need to

Thanks! I know I could make it better and more clear but I will wait until I get some counter arguments and criticism before I add to it.

DDDx8 wrote: I don't quite even understand free will, but I will still argue against it.

That might sum it up right there. You should probably consider studying the standard response a little more.

First, any theist who believes in free will would basically consider "motivation" as you listed, to be the manifestation of the free will- that is, you're basically choosing your motivation, your motivation is your will, and you're free to be motivated about whatever you want.

Establishing motivation as a non-free deterministic factor in will basically negates free will entirely, so the rest of the argument is moot.
Your premise is basically the conclusion, so the whole argument is employing a pretty big logical fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question


So, forget the motivation part if you want to talk about free will.

The remaining factors are knowledge and environmental ability (physical ability is really just part of environmental condition).

Because belief is never realistically limited by environment or physical ability- that is, you can believe even if you can't do (for example, can't reach a church to accept the sacrament), and in the majority of Abrahamic religion, salvation is established on faith (belief), the environmental elements/physical ability are irrelevant (aside from some limited traditions, like Calvinism)

So, forget about environment/ability.

Even in the cases where certain actions are required, physical inability to perform them is excused in every major religion (even Catholicism) by the vast majority of apologists and canonized church positions.

So then the only real factor is knowledge.


This is mostly a restatement of the question: "what about people who never heard the word, and didn't have a chance to accept Jesus/Allah/etc. in life?"

Also known as the "fate of the unlearned"

Wiki has a pretty comprehensive article on it, with an overview of major religions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_of_the_unlearned

Please read it thoroughly.

Christian denominations answer this differently, but the usual answer is that they won't be held accountable if they couldn't have known better, but they will be accountable if they received the word and rejected it (due to free will), or otherwise lived in sin (because they assume god's basic laws are innately known by all people from birth).

Islam answers this question more consistently than Christianity, because it deals quite a bit with 'people of the book' etc. in scripture- and it's pretty clear on the point that people who didn't receive the message of Allah will be spared if they are good in spirit and truly seek to follow god as they know it (and that only Allah can truly judge that), and believed in Allah in some sense (even if mistakenly believing a different monotheistic religion).
Though it gives some unforgivable exceptions Christianity doesn't have, like making particular pronouncements about Shirk, particularly ascribing partners to Allah (e.g. the abomination of the Christian trinity).

There's also a widespread belief that humans have some innate, unlearned knowledge of god and morality, which they can not disobey (or they will be held accountable for it). This stems from the tree of knowledge of good and evil- and in some traditions, is even argued to be derived from reason alone. This is the case in Christianity and Islam, but the degree of this knowledge depends on who you ask.

So, knowledge doesn't always do it either- because some of it is claimed to be innate and deeply known by all humanity despite education or lack there of.

Generally speaking, everybody has to believe in 'god', or follow the Noahide laws, because they believe humans have innate knowledge of god, or that it's so obvious you have to be deliberately rejecting it to not believe.
In Christianity, most apologists will wave this away and grant latitude anyway, for those who have not heard.
In Islam, sometimes Kufr (disbelief) is forgivable if the person had not received the true message, since a big theme in Islam is the corrupted and irrational messages that are floating around, so it's considered reasonable to dismiss them (although this varies in interpretations- most apologists will say it's up to the judgement of Allah, and won't touch this with a ten foot pole).


But for most of them, it is quite clear that they do NOT have to believe specifically in Jesus, Muhammad, etc. UNLESS they heard the word- at which point, it would be clear to them that whatever particular religion is obviously true, and if they didn't immediately convert they were deliberately going against god due to ego, etc. and they would go to hell if they died in disbelief.
There is an exception for when the word was corrupted, or delivered incompetently.

There's a relatively famous Native American quote...

http://www.atheistapologist.com/2010/07 ... holes.html

This guy talks about it a little. I don't think anybody knows where it came from originally, but it likely represents a number of real exchanges.

Exceptions to that (like strict interpretations of Calvinism) are uncommon in the modern era.
However, Christians and Muslims will say that spreading the word only increases the number of people who will go to heaven, because only evil people would reject the true message (so that guy's arguments are generally pretty weak).

DDDx8 wrote: So of course I will accept by fiat that there is some sort of Abrahamic God, and he has the sort of properties that are common of the variations of Abrahamic Gods like omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence and some sort of heaven and hell system.

Ex falso, quodlibet.
From falsehood, anything follows.

If you accept something which is logically contradictory as a premise, even provisionally, no coherent logical conclusion can really be drawn from any argument that follows.

Accepting those qualities which are internally contradictory leads to defeat in any attempt at rational argument. It's not ultimately useful to do so in any argument.

DDDx8 wrote: With that in mind how could such a God with the properties of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence make a world where some people are limited by their circumstances and unable to believe and others are not. How could a God such like that condemn people that would have believed under different circumstances?

Because such a god is inherently illogical, and is clearly not constrained by the bounds of logic and reason. He can make a square circle, and he can do that.

When you accept those provisions, you've already lost because you have accepted that logic and internal consistency is not necessary, and that explanations that involve contradictions are acceptable.

I hope that helps.

If you're going to attack god, go straight for the jugular of the internal contradictions- don't grant it unnecessary latitude and allowances for those internal contradictions to go for some tangential point of minor soteriology that has been otherwise plausibly addressed for centuries.

I tend to be more radical about my christian views and my mind isn't so closed like 90% of my fellow believers. Freewill was given to people by God, so says the bible, and truth is we do have free will, God didn't fashion us like angels who obey without question. He wanted us to have free will. By having free will it complicates one of God's characteristics, which is he knows everything past, present, future, EVERYTHING. free will grants us the ability to chose a path for ourselves even if it is away from God. And He does not control this.

-- this is also my theory for ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS: to God there's infinite worlds and realities, every time were faced with a choice it branches out so in one, I'm the atheist and your the christian and in one the owner of this website has a different website, THE CARNIVORE CHRISTIAN. these worlds, these dimensions exist only in God's mind.

In short free will means He doesn't hold us by the neck

revankatal wrote:I tend to be more radical about my christian views and my mind isn't so closed like 90% of my fellow believers. Freewill was given to people by God, so says the bible, and truth is we do have free will, God didn't fashion us like angels who obey without question. He wanted us to have free will. By having free will it complicates one of God's characteristics, which is he knows everything past, present, future, EVERYTHING. free will grants us the ability to chose a path for ourselves even if it is away from God. And He does not control this.

-- this is also my theory for ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS: to God there's infinite worlds and realities, every time were faced with a choice it branches out so in one, I'm the atheist and your the christian and in one the owner of this website has a different website, THE CARNIVORE CHRISTIAN. these worlds, these dimensions exist only in God's mind.

In short free will means He doesn't hold us by the neck

Sorry, but I'm not too sure how he's not "holding us by the neck" the choice seems as though it's heaven or hell.

if the choice is heaven of hell, which one did you choose?

revankatal wrote:if the choice is heaven of hell, which one did you choose?

Obviously if the choice is to live forever or eternal damnation is there I would choose to live forever. But giving us two options? If this god really loved us there would be only one option heaven and there would be no sin created. But since you support the theory of evolution it would be hard to exactly explain to me when sin was created and why god created it in the first place.

revankatal wrote:if the choice is heaven of hell, which one did you choose?

I actually would agree with Mark Twain's joke: heaven for the climate, hell for the company.

I would like to say id like replies from atheist view points, don't attempt to adopt my belief then answer from there, coz that's messy.

were talking about free will, and the ability to choose, and as an atheist you chose not to choose, which means you have free will. An atheist saying he chooses hell is not an atheist. and I tell you 80% of Christians choose hell.