# A visible God would deny us of free will. True or false? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 7, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576 "2014-12-07T15:19:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576/41 "2014-12-10T07:58:12Z")
> [@Contemporary\_Logic](#): > > You are not defending the definition you provided. The definition you provided is a will not constrained by necessity or fate. This means that a person would have an element of randomness to their decision-making unconstrained by deterministic variables. Please search GD for thread on free will. I think you’ll get your fill of the various sides of the argument. The OP works pretty much with any definition of free will that you choose. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576/42 "2014-12-10T08:04:03Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Carrying the logic to a (ridiculous) end, all punishments and rewards remove free will. Why would a sane person choose to kill a person knowing that they will likely go to prison or be executed? And parents shoudn’t praise their children for being well-behaved. Children should want to be good for goodness sake, not because they will be rewarded and not for fear of punishment. And in the case of God it is more like the laws are not published, except in volumes of rumors supposedly copied from the real laws but which are mutually contradictory. And while there may be self-appointed police for these books of rumors, no one has ever seen a real judge. Let’s face it - this whole thing is a feeble way of explaining the absence of God from the world. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576/43 "2014-12-10T08:10:28Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > **YogSosoth** , I don’t believe in God or free will, mind you. But I don’t understand why God would bother creating human beings with _no_ free will. What would be the point of watching and judging a bunch of automatons who have no control over their actions? Well what’s the point of it _now_? > [@Contemporary Logic](#): > > Ok, lets be accurate here. It’s not a strictly for or against position of the OP, but to say it’s “so different a topic” is not true at all. The entire OP rests directly on the assumption of free-will. I think we can sidestep it by just saying we’re talking about _freedom_ in the usual sense, and not free will. e.g. most people would agree someone in prison does not have most of their freedoms. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576/44 "2014-12-10T13:44:11Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Plus, if God is really all powerful, he could make it so that we could see his presence in the world, and still have free will to love him or not. Hell, he could make it so that we all have free will to love him, and cannot choose not to love him at the same time, and make that not a contradiction at all. He’s God. A can be both A and !A at the same time if he so wills it. To suggest that he’s bound by the rules of logic is to admit that he is not omnipotent. Oh dear. Are we still not advanced past the “Can God make a rock so heavy He can’t lift it?” chestnut? If it makes you feel any better, I am happy to accept a God that is not _omnipotent_ in the rather sophomoric manner you suggest. Not _infinitely_ powerful - just able to create a Universe by an exercise of will, restore the dead to life, command a storm to be still or multiply a sack lunch into much more than five thousand generous portions. That doesn’t call for _infinite_ power or require us to engage in the kind of choplogic you appear eager to espouse. Helpful? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576/45 "2014-12-10T14:05:21Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And there goes the God must provide free will argument. However the better example is the golden calf - Israel got their asses saved by God, saw him in a cloud leading them, and had a leader chatting with God. And they still disobeyed. > Some Christians don’t seem to read much of the Bible, do they? I would say that pretty much everyone who reads the Bible and attempts to follow it reads the Bible selectively. But yes, that’s a fine, Biblical example of how God could show Himself very explicitly to us without stripping us of free will to follow His commandments or not, or to love Him or not. > [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](#): > > Oh dear. Are we still not advanced past the “Can God make a rock so heavy He can’t lift it?” chestnut? > > If it makes you feel any better, I am happy to accept a God that is not _omnipotent_ in the rather sophomoric manner you suggest. Not _infinitely_ powerful - just able to create a Universe by an exercise of will, restore the dead to life, command a storm to be still or multiply a sack lunch into much more than five thousand generous portions. That doesn’t call for _infinite_ power or require us to engage in the kind of choplogic you appear eager to espouse. Helpful? That’s all fine. The part I don’t get is how God can (1) give every person different information, some contradictory information, some effectively no information. (2) punish via eternal torment those who guess wrong. I have decided to reject out-of-hand every sect that holds (2), since (1) is obviously true. I figure if there really is a God, and He really works that way, we are all screwed, and there’s no reason to try. I am agnostic re the existence of God, but figure that if there is a God, there isn’t one true path that he wants us to follow. Because if there were, He would have let us know. And let us all know the same thing. You don’t have to be able to make a burrito so hot you can’t eat it to be able to give instructions that are clearer, more consistent, and more widely available than IRS tax instructions. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576/46 "2014-12-10T14:33:18Z")
> [@Contemporary\_Logic](#): > > Ok, lets be accurate here. It’s not a strictly for or against position of the OP, but to say it’s “so different a topic” is not true at all. The entire OP rests **directly** on the assumption of free-will. Regardless, let’s leave it to the moderators to decide these kind of things. The Moderator agrees that it needs its own thread. Given the OP, the debate follows the premise of that post. If you wish to argue, separately, that the OP has no basis, then open a new thread with a link to this one and set forth your position. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-visible-god-would-deny-us-of-free-will-true-or-false/706576.md?page=2)