I grew up going to church but I’m not religious now and I never really understood this part.

Please, no answers along the lines of “aha, that’s why Christianity is a sham” or “religions aren’t logical”. I don’t want to debate whether it’s right or wrong, I just want to understand the logic and reasoning that Christians use to explain this.

  • Generic-Disposable@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    Writ on a broader scale, if someone has power over you (say a government) but chooses not to get involved when you do something, is that free will?

    yes.

    Or have they just not prohibited the action you chose to take?

    Not relevant. You still had the free will to act.

    ? I think you have to scope what you mean by free will for there to be any semblance of it given how nebulous “will” can be. If you believe that outcomes are even to some degree deterministic (say, for example, we are predisposed a certain way because of our background, but may act differently because of our beliefs), then it is compatible with a definition of Free Will that has an omniscient being knowing what we will do.

    I have no idea what you are trying to say with this word salad. Being predisposed doesn’t negate free will. You could be a coward for example and be predisposed to run and hide when there is danger but you have the free will to act bravely when the situation presents itself. You or me or anybody else can’t know for sure what you will do. More absurdly you or me or anybody else can’t know how you will act in any given situation the minute your fathers sperm penetrated your mother’s egg.

    That’s the situation here. The minute the egg is fertilized god knows exactly what you will in every moment of every day for the rest of your life. That means you don’t have free will. You can’t surprise god, you can’t do anything he didn’t foresee.