My position goes further than that though. It’s not that I don’t think we have free will – I think the whole notion doesn’t even make sense as a thing that could exist. How does a “real” free will decision get made? How can it be a reasoned decision but also not occur for reasons?
I have a problem with the notion that not wanting to do evil makes you a God-zombie. Surely there are an infinitude of ways to do good, just as there are an infinitude of ways to paint or sculpt beautiful works of art. It’s not like when DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo sculpted David, every other artist and sculptor gave up because every other painting or statue should be replicas of Mona Lisa or David, and the only way to paint was to become a DaVinci-zombie, and the only way to sculpt was to become a Michelangelo-zombie.
That argument presumes that it is OK for somebody to have their mind forcibly modified like that.
Also, how is it ‘forcibly modified’ (or even just ‘modified’) when we’re talking about their creation? Unless we’re saying God ‘forcefully modified’ nothingness to bring the Universe into being.
I think he’s saying that, when you go to Heaven, your brain is changed so that it no longer wants to do bad things, so forcibly modifying your brain, so that it only wants to bask in God’s glory or do heavenly things, or whatever.
That’s an interesting take. Upon a little further reflection though, I don’t think our positions are all that different. I say free will doesn’t exist because all our choices are based on underlying instilled prejudices or genetically-based needs-- reasons, in other words. The only true choice of free will would be one that is purely random, free of any underlying notions or physical needs. But a purely random choice would not really be a choice at all. So the notion of ‘free will’ is an inherent paradox.
The conventional idea of Heaven as a place where we get perfect immortal physical forms, but our minds are pretty much the same as on Earth, and we get to hang out in a happy place where everything is wonderful, would not work. Life is all about change: resolving conflict, solving problems, looking forward to enjoying the fruits of our labor. A happy place where all our needs are met and we have nothing to strive for would get extremely boring in probably just a couple years, let alone a couple million. The only way some version of ‘Heaven’ could exist is if our minds were transformed somehow- say, if we merged into a universal consciousness or some such thing. Or maybe…we just cease to exist.
Exactly. Except that the paradox is with the definition of the concept itself, not anything in external reality.
Anyway, I’ll definitely leave it there, I don’t want to hijack.
Are we hijacking though? The OP is all about notions of free will. I think a discussion of what it is, if it even exists or can exist, is relevant.
In any case, I guess I’ll leave it be from here on, as well.
My take would be that Yahweh was developed around the same time as Cronus and Zeus, with later influences from Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrian element took out some of the complete Game of Thrones-ishness of the mythology - it’s hard to be so absolutely wild when there’s no pantheon to interact with - but we still see the same sort of general personality that you’d get if you were following a pantheonic religion of the era.
No, there are far fewer ways to do good than do bad, however one defines the terms. Just as of all the possible ways one could try to create art, almost all of them would fail and result in junk. And just as nearly any random mutation is far more likely to make an organism worse rather than better.
There’s always many more ways to go wrong than right.
I’d largely agree. The point I was making is that the conflict between free will and the capacity to do evil is largely dependent on Christian interpretation of events (which is fine, their OP and that’s what they want to focus on). But since they asked explicitly for believers and non-believer’s input. Complete non-believers may not see any difference between wondering why an author wrong a story a particular way. Other “People of the Book” who share some of the same history are of course going to see it through the lens of their own faith (as I demonstrated), and believers of alternate faiths may draw parallels between their own parables as to why we have both good and evil.
As a secularist, of course I’d say that in the oral traditions from which the Torah evolved, there was a need to find a reason that humans were so damn human - so they blamed people long, long ago in a garden far far away, and used the myth to enforce what their extant moral code was.
And I’ll add another +1 to those who disagree that our freewill (for most definitions) is complete.
Back to a specific of the OP though:
Sure he could have. Again, if omniscient and omnipotent, the being who literally created everything in the universe from nothing, this is all a game of dominoes. Free will is an illusion. For mortals, the butterfly effect of random interactions would prevent such a thing, but God can set up the perfect shot (mixing metaphors) across endless time and space.
I disagree for two reasons, though this is largely subjective so I’m not claiming you’re wrong.
Firstly, I think the vast majority of our actions are neither good nor evil, I scratch an itch, I brush my teeth, I play some video games…these are not intended to be virtuous or evil actions. So I have no issue with a hypothetical reality where evil is off the table because moral decisions are a small part of my reality anyway.
Secondly, I think it’s irrelevant. Even if there are more ways to do evil than good (which I think is debatable) it doesn’t entail some kind of fixed, on rails existence without evil, especially if we’re talking about a god that could have made us without, say, violent tendencies.
Most of those do involve good and evil though, as they affect other people. Using anything you’ve bought involves a whole slew of moral issues involving the methods that were used to make them and bring them to you. And of course every minute spent doing something just to enjoy yourself is a minute not helping others.
If somebody was magically compelled to do no evil they’d probably just freeze and fall over, because there is no path that doesn’t lead to causing evil. Every action you take or don’t take will lead to bad effects somewhere down the line.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to define “evil” as something not involving intent and instead so broadly that we are “evil” just for existing and breathing oxygen / taking up space etc.
Besides, you said previously “however one defines the terms”, so FTR, no, I don’t agree with this version of evil; I think it needs some degree of intent and direct causality.