Um…yes. An actor has no free will…she is just playing the part as scripted and directed.
edited to add: If it’s just a script that cannot change, then whatever I do is done by the author, not me.
Okay, the analogy has flaws. What if you’re watching Improv?
Does not apply-the people in the audience only throw in suggestions and have no idea what the actors will do with those suggestions.
How about a direct answer to my question in post #418 instead of these flawed analogies?
I had in mind you watching a film of an Improv, but misspoke.
Okay, yes he knows. No, you’d do it anyway.
Like a puppet on a string?
If God knows ahead of time you are going to hell, can you change your fate and go to heaven? You don’t think god interferes with peoples choices? Not ever?
What do you mean by that? I thought Calvin taught that people are saved by grace alone.
It’s one of the passages I quoted. If God makes some people refuse to listen, it really sounds to me like he is getting in the way of free choice. You don’t think so?
Can’t you see that each of your choices results from something else? Why do you think you need free will to have purpose? Don’t think of yourself as a puppet, maybe think of yourself as a highly advanced biological organism obeying the laws of physics and causality, or playing the part laid out for you by and all sovereign God. Maybe read Harris’ free will book before the other ones.
You mean you really didn’t hear a song?
What?
No, like a person with free will who chooses to act of his own volition, but in accord with what God told him.
BTW, you are supposed to give a direct answer first, then use analogies if the direct answer isn’t understood. When an analogy is used first, it is usually because the person using it is trying to avoid the unpleasantness the direct answer might bring.
But you just said that there is NO choice-we WILL do what your god says we will do.
Oh, I get it. You mean that people have free will to do what God determines. That doesn’t sound very free to me.
Okay, you haven’t read Flatland. No. Not usually. On rare occasions for reasons I do not know.
Yes, in Calvinism, since there is no free will, salvation only comes to those that God has given his grace, and preordained to be saved. It determines that humanity is totally depraved and is incapable of the choice to accept God’s grace on its own. This is one of the places where the majority of Christians differ with Calvinism.
For some people, yes, see above.
Spontaneity doesn’t appeal to you at all, does it? Without free will I do not have power to choose and am a biological robot. I will most likely get around to Harris’s Free Will, but I’ll read his Letter first, since I have it now.
Yes, I heard a song. The words of the song didn’t matter, it was the immanent presence of God that was the convincing part.
Your original question was:
Does your god know what I will do tomorrow? If so, and he decides to tell me what I will do tomorrow, can I do something different, or will I go through the motions like a puppet on a string?
If God directly tells you what you will do, this will be an extemely unusual event. He would have his own reasons for telling you, and, given the fact that you’ve suddenly had an encounter with an arguably superior intelligence, you would then come to the conclusion you had better act in accordance with his wishes. If he tells you you have a heart problem and you will go see your doctor tomorrow, why would you do otherwise? Out of spite?
Is Flatland that story where the circle is picked up out of the page and becomes a 3D object?
Calvinists have a number of Bible verses that say otherwise. Them verses are all wrong?
Have you read much about Calvinism? They cite Bible verses that say all of that. Some of which I have already cited.
So some people get free will and some don’t? Like Jacob and Essau? Which one was the free one?
Sure it does. Can you give me an example of a spontaneous act that does not have prior causes or stimuli?
You can still choose, your choice is just determined rather than free. You’re a biological robot whether you like it or not. You might be able to make better choices in the future if you accept it. I’m giving you stimuli to help you with that.
That should go quick. The Free Will book was better IMO, as was The Moral Landscape.
You saw this god? Was able to touch him? You said before it was angels not a god.
Like Jonah and the whale, Abraham and Andrea Yates?
Let’s try a direct answer that doesn’t have special conditions for an out(“heart attack” indeed :rolleyes:), o.k.? If God told me that I was going to watch one television show tomorrow, would I be able to choose another television show instead, or will I be a prisoner in my own body as he forces me to pick up the remote and watch the show he foretold I would watch? Edited to add: I’m not asking if I should do what he said I would do-I am asking whether I would have to do what he said I would do.
Why?
If he is real and omnipotent and all loving and all that.
If it’s all true, why would this be such an anusual occurence?
If it were all true you would expect him to pop in daily, just to say hi.
Wouldn’t he at least drop by when you needed real actual help?
At the very very very least he could have left a book of instructions that was actually clear about stuff.
Why is it that he will only communicate to 1 in 100.000 people?
It’s not very nice of him, now is it?