Re: [asa] God, Chance and Purpose

I would suggest that this would not negate "free will", but would
only show that someone's "free will" is predictable.

Our definition and understanding of "free will" is crucial to
discussions like these, and is often not well defined. There are a
number of different understandings in Christendom and in culture. I
believe Erasmus' view involved some idea of arbitrariness or ability
to make contrary choice, and Luther argued against this in "Bondage
of the Will" (maybe George Murphy can add some insight here?)
Perhaps a good definition might be "the ability to choose as one
desires". But this implies that one's desires may restrict the free
choices that he will actually make, and that one's free choice may
well be predictable by someone who understands his desires.

Kirk

On Jun 7, 2008, at 6:37 PM, Brian Harper wrote:

> At 05:29 PM 6/6/2008, Kirk Bertsche wrote:
>> FYI, this is essentially the same analogy that Millard Erickson
>> uses in his "Christian Theology" (except he uses chocolate cake vs
>> liver and onions). His point, like David's, is that God can know
>> us well enough to be certain of what we will choose even though we
>> have a completely free choice.
>>
>> Kirk
>
> Okay, let me propose a thought experiment. Suppose you and I got
> together and observed David over a long period of time. We took our
> observations and, with the help of a developed model and a super
> computer, were able predict every thing that David did. What he ate
> for breakfast, what color shirt he wore on Tuesday etc. etc. What
> would you conclude about David? That he has free will?

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Jun 9 11:22:46 2008