The concept of free will is indeed to much religious reasoning, yet its existence is still unproven. Using an unsubstantiated assumption to prove other conclusions is problematic from a logic perspective. A few key issues with relying on free will in religious arguments:
There is no scientific c...
Start from where you are and grope forward. "Let go the things of which you are in doubt, for the things in which there is no doubt." and, "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just stand there." Or perhaps: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" ?
Thank you for the quotes, but I am not in a need of personal guidance, I am more curious in understanding human reasoning from a social and psychological perspective.
How can you prove anything using an unproven assumption as a tool of a proof? In mathematical logic the unproven assumption is an Axiom. toppr.com/guides/maths/introduction-to-euclids-geometry/…A mathematical statement that we know is true and which has a proof is a theorem. We can further explain it as a series of Conjectures (proof) that combine together to give a true result. So if a statement is always true and doesn't need proof, it is an axiom. In the social context of moral judgments (law, religion, folk psychology) humans express will.
Free will is as certain as anything you think you know. Any other supposed "proven assumption" you think you know can be attacked on grounds at least as convincing as any attacks on free will.
I would argue Freedom of Will emerged as a concept to absolve god of evil in theodicies addressing the Problem of Evil. But I would also argue that the idea there is a single objective reality beyond the convergence of experiences, implicitly assumes that there is a 'mind of god' perspective to be arbiter of the truly real. Intersubjectivity is the tool to solve both conundrums, discussed here: 'Is the idea of a causal chain physical (or even scientific)?' philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/70930/…
@CriglCragl Free will as a special exception (by divine permission) to divine omni_'s, yes, but belief in moral agency and a shared reality... I'm fairly certain that such a belief predates mammals. Perhaps if we find some hundred-million-year-old mosquitos trapped in amber, we can clone velociraptors and try to teach them sign language to ask them. (It couldn't possibly go wrong.)
"The concept of free will is indeed to much religious reasoning" - I don't know what you're trying to say here. I encourage you to edit the question to make it clearer.
Afaik (libertarian) free will is more of a conclusion in religious thinking. Usually the reasoning goes as 1 "the concept of sin and punishment makes no sense without free will or if god made me the way I am" 2 "it must makes sense because I really really want it to or would lose my employment as a theologian" 3 "therefore we have free will". It's the concept of sin that is the unfounded assumption.
@armand I thought it was the concept of God that was the unfounded assumption? Sin can be regarded as harm towards others or self.
Show me the edge of a beach, where the sand gives way to the ocean, and I will show you the boundary of free will. (not original with me, but I forget where I got this from)
@ScottRowe There are religions and God(s) without a concept of sin (ancient Greece, shinto, Buddhism...). Sin is what god disapproves so strongly of that he can't tolerate you in his presence, not simply harming self or others. Some famous examples of sins like picking up wood on a Saturday, eating pork or wearing mix fabrics harm no one, simply offends god. A God who is tri-omni but can be offended requires free will, others who are not tri-omni don't. Afaik only the abrahamic religions logically paint themselves in a corner to such an extent.
@armand Ancient Greek? Sin is fundamental to Oedipus the King, and to the Oresteia. Yes, there is a family curse, but, in each tragedy, there is a human choice--"then he put on the harness of necessity", as The Agamemnon puts it; that choice that the protagonist made (e.g . Agamemnon sacrificing his own daughter) was a sin, not just in Christian terms but in the Ancient Greek world.
@ScottRowe there are gods who do not disapprove. Thus the key assumption here is the disapproval. Don't forget there are religions other than the abrahamic ones.
@SimonCrase there are honorable and dishonorable deeds in Greek myth, or personal offenses against a particular god, but no sin. The gods themselves are not perfect. What one did to anger Hera might gain them the favors of Aphrodite. Heck it might very well be Aphrodite who pushed someone to offend Hera. Mortals are just a plaything but Her a is offended just the same, and it makes sense because she's not supposed to be perfect, benevolent or almighty. You are projecting Christian notions on a religion that was completely different.
@armand I don't pretend to know where you found your little paean to moral relativism, but I base my views on reading Sophocles and Aeschylus. If you take the time to read the Oresteia and the Theban Plays, you will find plenty of actual sin. You won't find Hera or Aphrodite condoning Oedipus murdering his dad and killing his mum; you won't find the gods condoning Creon's impiety. Yes, the gods could be petty sometimes, but these two trilogies dealt with matters that grossly offended Zeus (God, rather than a god), in short with sin.
It would be great if people would come up with a consistent definition for God so we could decide the question once and for all. No one disagrees over arithmetic or gravity. If we get God wrong there should be results as clear as getting gravity wrong. Absolute, irreversible consequences.
Same for free will, or there is no point even bringing it up. Let's stick to things that matter.
@SimonCrase You read Oedipus different than I do. The way I see it he's fated to do and suffer as he did from his birth. That's why he's discarded tightening the edict of the Gods. Greek tragedy almost by definition is terrifying because every step is so inexorable.
Yes @armand I too see it as you do sin-freewill is a peculiarly Christian predicament. In the Ramayana Vishnu-Ram are to a rough approx. to God-Christ in the Bible. Yet even Rama is compelled to be born and suffer by karma. His divinity is not in being all creator and controller but in complete and unflinching acceptance of the law. One could say this mirrors Jesus demeanor as goes to be hanged
@SimonCrase i read Sophocle too, so can you please get off from your high horses? You might find the word sin in the translation from ancient greek. Sorry to break it to you but that doesn't mean Sophocle intended it the way you, a XXI century western reader, project into it. The whole point of Oedipus, as Rushi says, is the catastrophic prophecy he is trying to avoid but accomplishes anyway, It's his own personal fate, not some bad action he freely intended to do and will be judged for. Maybe read again because you missed the whole point of the play...
@Rushi That is a misreading of Sophocles: he isn't fated to fulfill the prophecy; nobody made him lose his temper and kill the traveler he met on the road. In the tragedy he jumps to the conclusion that Teiresias is concealing vital information, that Creon is conspiring with Teiresias to replace him. He is destroyed by his own character flaw: a tendency to act too fast, because he knew he was smarter than anyone. Sophocles was a teenager when Athens defeated the Persians, the mightiest nation on Earth, at Salamis. His generation knew that man made his fate.
@armand You _can_read Oedipus the King that way if you are in a hurry, and don't notice the way he interacts with other characters. E.F. Watling's introduction to his translation (Penguin classics) speaks of "Oedipus,...too confident of his sufficiency, too ready to take offence, or to impute blame when 'rattled' by the approach of trouble...". Oedipus did have a run of bad luck (as Aristophanes said, he married a woman old enough to be his mother, then found out that she was), but he wittingly killed a stranger (who he found out was his dad). That is recognizably a sin.
@SimonCrase Laius received an oracle from Delphi which told him that he must not have a child, or the child would kill him and marry his wife; in another version, recorded by Aeschylus, Laius is warned that he can save the city only if he dies childless — wiki
So it's rather a stretch that Oedipus is to blame for killing his father when it's preordained long before Oedipus birth that IF Laius has a son he will be a father killer
@Rusi yes, the Oracle _told_ him. Does that make it true, do you think? Or, more to the point: did Sophocles expect us to believe the Oracle? Delphi was notoriously pro-Spartan; it had a track record of issuing prophecies that favoured Sparta over Athens. (I have been to Delphi, BTW, it still has a magical feel). If Sophocles believed the Oracle, why does he give us hints that something else was happening? You might read the Andromache of Euripides; ask yourself what Euripides thought of the Oracle. Hint-the chronology is suspect. either Euripides made a clumsy blunder with the timing, or h…
Discussion on question by Serg Z.: Wh…
Discussion on question by Serg Z.: Wh…