Repeat after me: “this has nothing to do with my views on religion”

_{William Dembski

April 13, 2008

Darwinism, Evolution, Philosophy, Religion, Science}

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[[This blast from the past was originally published here at UD 25oct06. With EXPELLED coming out so soon and given Dawkins’s prominent role in it, I thought it worth moving to the top of the stack (blogs have the data structure of a push-down stack). –WmAD]]

Last night Richard Dawkins did a reading from his new book, The God Delusion, at a bookstore in DC. After the reading he fielded questions. A friend of mine was in the front and got to be the first to go. He asked Dawkins if he thought he was being inconsistent by being a determinist while taking credit for writing his book. The answer so shocked my questioner friend that he typed out a transcript of what was said, which is pasted below. He recorded the audio on his laptop and has as an MP3, just in case someone wishes to dispute his recollection of this event. I post it here with my friend’s permission.

Richard Dawkins at Politics and Prose speaking on The God Delusion
Question and Answer

Questioner: Dr. Dawkins thank you for your comments. The thing I have appreciated most about your comments is your consistency in the things I’ve seen you written. One of the areas that I wanted to ask you about and the places where I think there is an inconsistency and I hoped you would clarify it is that in what I’ve read you seem to take a position of a strong determinist who says that what we see around us is the product of physical laws playing themselves out but on the other hand it would seem that you would do things like taking credit for writing this book and things like that. But it would seem, and this isn’t to be funny, that the consistent position would be that necessarily the authoring of this book from the initial condition of the big bang it was set that this would be the product of what we see today. I would take it that that would be the consistent position but I wanted to know what you thought about that.

Dawkins: The philosophical question of determinism is a very difficult question. It’s not one I discuss in this book, indeed in any other book that I’ve ever talked about. Now an extreme determinist, as the questioner says, might say that everything we do, everything we think, everything that we write, has been determined from the beginning of time in which case the very idea of taking credit for anything doesn’t seem to make any sense. Now I don’t actually know what I actually think about that, I haven’t taken up a position about that, it’s not part of my remit to talk about the philosophical issue of determinism. What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should … I sometimes … Um … You probably remember many of you would have seen Fawlty Towers. The episode where Basil where his car won’t start and he gives it fair warning, counts up to three, and then gets out of the car and picks up a tree branch and thrashes it within an edge of his life. Maybe that’s what we all ought to… Maybe the way we laugh at Basil Fawlty, we ought to laugh in the same way at people who blame humans. I mean when we punish people for doing the most horrible murders, maybe the attitude we should take is “Oh they were just determined by their molecules.” It’s stupid to punish them. What we should do is say “This unit has a faulty motherboard which needs to be replaced.” I can’t bring myself to do that. I actually do respond in an emotional way and I blame people, I give people credit, or I might be more charitable and say this individual who has committed murders or child abuse of whatever it is was really abused in his own childhood. And so again I might take a …

Questioner: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views?

Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. But it has nothing to do with my views on religion it is an entirely separate issue.

Questioner: Thank you.

Comments

[...] Dembski reported on his friend’s exchange with Richard Dawkins at a D.C. bookstore, where Dawkins was promoting [...]No I Don’t, Yes I Do Believe in Free Will « Theosophical Ruminations_{September 15, 2008
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A footnote: Gentlefolks, first note that if God is eternal not time-bound, then his knowledge of what happens in time is not the same as forcing what happens to be so through deterministic cause-effect chains. By sharpest contrast, evo mat derives "mind" from chance + necessity acting on matter + energy, so it ends up with chance boundary conditions and deterministic forces driving our thought world -- including the real decision making we need to be rational -- straight into absurdity. THAT is the key point, one ducked by Dawkins as shown in the OP, and diverted from by others, who ar5e far more eager to discuss the perceived or real challenges of traditional theism, than they are to address the gaping hole in the foundation of today's dominant worldview among the College educated classes of the West. A view that has taken time to redefine science to establish itself by definition, and is now resorting to classic censorship and expulsions to keep it so! Next, observe: we live in a contingent cosmos that credibly had a beginning at a specific point in the past. Such a cosmos of contingent beings entails, logically, a necessary being that is its own cause. A quasi-infinite cosmos as a whole in which sub cosmi pop up by chance is a [poor!] candidate for that, and so is God [a much better candidate]. But, also, we see trotted out the inference that Judaeo Christian theists are enemies of liberty. That is historically ignorant, and is utterly illogical, once one can tell the difference between liberty [which is profoundly moral in character, being rooted in issues of justice] and libertinism or amorality [this last being a logical outcome of evolutionary materialism: there are no grounds that giver weight to our moral intuitions in this view]. And, Frosty is right, I am a principled liberty-minded small-d democrat; and BTW, a cynical monarchist. (The house of Windsor gets our Caribbean tourism destinations better publicity than we can pay for, so it is worth the trifling amount it costs to keep the historical tradition going. For instance, recall a few months back where it was BBC world news that Jamaican soldiers were taking their turn at guarding Buckingham Palace, complete with Jamaican music a the change of guards! (FYI, the Monarch of Britain is per constitution also the monarch of Jamaica.)) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 21, 2008
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"You miss the point. If God is an eternal being, then he encompasses our linear time." That's a lovely assumption would you care to back it with something other than your word? I got your point, my problem and the paradox I presented however, were that this finite existence is all there is. That there is absolutely nothing beyond the ever expanding membrane that makes up the spatio-temporal realm, and that space-time only exists within that membrane. There is no future universe for a God(and an irrational God at that) to look toward. A God that has always been is simply a God who has always existed, existance had a starting point and quite likely will have an ending. Plancks constant dictates there was no time before the big bang. Space-time occurs afterward, so for all intensive purposes, God could very well be a material thing. Isn't that an unromantic concept though? lolStone_{April 19, 2008
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Jerry, I dont think that most people here are that way at all. I think most of them would not want their religion forced upon other people. Their own bible does not say that you should force other people to believe. I think you are totally wrong. I have never met anyone who wanted christainty taught in public funded schools as fact- especially as the monopoly of education. ID does not calim to be for any religion and its theory is not connected by necessity or logic to any religion. The founders dont want to build some Reich and neither do I. I dont think that Kairosfocus would want any of this and he is a regular poster here and certinaly the declared athesits and deists and agnostics that post here who I have had discussions with most lilly wouldn't either. I think you are propagandising here a little. Once again there is no "ID day" but there is a "Darwin day." Show me where the ID advocates are marching and demonstating like the Gay Pride- or the green peace or the anti war or all the other real and true poltical extreamist and belief based movements. Your view has no merrit at all in my eyes because all of my knowledge and expierence completely conradicts it. I have little more to say on this issue.Frost122585_{April 16, 2008
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Note also that there is no experimental result that would be inconsistent with an omnipotent unknown designer. Any experimental finding can be explained by saying "it was designed that way". However, there is no way to test that explanation.congregate_{April 16, 2008
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austin_english at 82
But they want to get ID into science classes.
Suggest you consider the other side too - that atheists insist on requiring students to learn materialism in classrooms and forbid any mention of any possibility of an Intelligent Designer. That is establishment of secularism comparable to Stalin or Mao's - just in a western context where they are only just beginning to "Expell" all "unbelievers" (in Darwinism). Look at what Hitler did based on Darwinism. For more on ID, please explore ResearchID.org and IntelligentDesign.org Note that there is tons of experimental evidence published that can as or more easily be interpreted by ID than by the obligatory "evolution", once you begin to understand the difference and potential. austin_english at 74
I have to ask if the atheist Dawkins is acting more like a Christian than the Christians in the culture war.
What morals is Dawkins using? Worldviews based on "survival of the fittest" have no moral's but "Might makes 'right'" and anything goes to win. When Dawkins uses moral language of "right" and "wrong" etc., he is relying on his Christian background or the Christian culture around him to make those valuations. Have you examined the Assumptions of ID vs the religious beliefs of those who advocate ID? Note particularly Beliefs: Scientists and engineers working with intelligent causes have various worldviews and religious beliefs. The only assumption on their beliefs are the assumptions 1. through 8. above in examining intelligent causes. It IS honest in establishing a scientific theory to ONLY claim what can be inferred from the EVIDENCE. To go BEYOND that would be dishonest. When inference from evidence coincides with someones religious beliefs, does that make the inferences dishonest? If so what do Darwinists do when they proclaim materialism is all that there is? When there is NO logical NOR scientific basis for proving that? When you say that ID is not "honest", what moral basis do you use? What assumptions are you making? Can you apply those same assumptions to yourself and say that you are being honest? Or are you making ad hominem attacks on ID - i.e., claiming moral dishonesty in practitioners based on differing assumptions or logical errors? I encourage you to be very careful on accusing others of dishonesty - especially without evidence.DLH_{April 16, 2008
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A key point in 74 is that ID believers I know in real life aren’t honest. They believe because they’re Christians who accept on faith that God created living things. Apparently you need to think beyond stigma words like faith or "religion." What people seem to mean by "religion" or faith when they use it as a stigma word is knowledge based on low epistemic standards. Note that knowledge based on faith in another person, testimony, witness, history, tradition, etc., need not be defined by low epistemic standards at all. If you have faith in your wife it can be very high form of knowledge. But this is apparently what many mean by "religion" and faith, given their use as stigma words and the way that those with sharply limited intellects associate them with pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters, etc. Given that the nature of faith is not necessarily the equivalent of knowledge defined by low epistemic standards many scientists have come to a form of faith as the result of what they have observed of life scientifically. There are also many ID proponents who have beliefs based on their religious tradition which they think may be verified by empirical facts and logic. It's not apparent what is so terrible about beginning with knowledge rooted in a religious tradition and finding that it is consonant with knowledge based on empirical evidence. Note that because the possibility of verification also opens the door to falsification many religious people argue against ID because they are fearful that it will falsify their faith or give that impression. And so on and on, it's certainly not as simple as: "ID proponents believe because they’re Christians who accept on faith that God created living things." Given how typical "panda's thumb" type arguments and atheism or negative theology are to Darwinists one could just as easily argue: "Proponents of Darwinism believe it only because they're Christian apostates who want to reject and work against their original faith." For many, that may be true. The story of the provincial fundamentalist who goes on a journey and finds his answers to his religion in the Darwinian creation myth is so common that it is provincial itself. Apparently a residue of Christianity remains with its apostates. Ironically blogs are named after theological arguments like the "panda’s thumb" and yet those who write it argue that theology has nothing to do with science. The theological arguments typical to Darwinists seem to be rather puerile and shallow: “God wouldn’t make a panda’s thumb like this because we all know that the Bible says that creation is perfect or somethin’.” Perhaps that’s because they typically leave their original faith as an ignorant schoolboy and so on. In the end it seems that there is more diversity and complexity among ID proponents than among Darwinists. That is to say, Darwinists generally share the same pattern of evolution. Their designer is God. But they want to get ID into science classes. Then why is it that many of the leading proponents of ID are against highschool teachers trying to teach their ideas? They know to say they don’t know who the designer is. When I ask about the scientific support for ID, all they say is that Darwin was wrong. Well, he was, so it would seem apposite to allow people to say so.mynym_{April 16, 2008
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"The majority aren’t. I don’t know of any who are....Bill Dembski, Stephen Meyers, Michael Behe, John Wells. I mean you name them- none of them are militant Christians " There is a difference between leaders and adherents. I do not think that YEC are in the minority of those who actively support ID. It is a necessary part of their religion but not for other Christians so it would be expected that they would be more interested. Look at your own words, "The majority aren’t. I don’t know of any who are. Most Christians I know don’t give a damn about DE or ID but they would probably support ID." You have just described the missing from the debate. It is not important to them. But what are their perceptions of the debate? I know what they are in my circle of acquaintances. My experience is that most of those who post here in support of ID in the last 2 1/2 years are very religiously motivated and there are many who look at ID as a proselytizing tool. When an ID speaker shows up as a speaker in certain areas of the country, the religious groups are out recruiting and they are mainly YEC. This is not true where I live which is the New York City area but there are many other areas where it is true. Actually I may want to change that. I got interested in ID when Behe, Dembski, Meyers came to New York in 1999 along with some others and spoke. In the lobby were some tables by religious groups which I ignored. There was not one mention of religion by any of the speakers which is what impressed me and got me started. The number of references to quotes from the bible on this site have gone down but they are still very prevalent here. This is an indication of the interest of the contributors. What has global warming got to do with this? And I haven't a clue what your last sentence is about.jerry_{April 16, 2008
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"When I ask about the scientific support for ID, all they say is that Darwin was wrong. They can’t answer the question, so they create a distraction." Truly, you must be kidding. Is this to say that you are unaware of any evidence for an inference to design in nature? Have you ever heard of the book "No Free Lunch"? Maybe "Darwin's Black Box"? Perhaps, "The Edge of Evolution" or "The Design Matrix" or "Privlidged Planet" or "The Design Inference" or "The Devil's Delusion"? Or is it, that you are saying that the people you've met are not skilled enough to humour you with an explanation? Is a lack of skill on their part to be used as an evidence against design in nature on your part? Just wondering.Upright BiPed_{April 16, 2008
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The majority aren’t. I don’t know of any who are. Most Christians I know don’t give a damn about DE or ID but they would probably support ID. Bill Dembski, Stephen Meyers, Michael Behe, John Wells. I mean you name them- none of them are militant Christians. They people you speak of are the minority though they do exist. They are usually YEC with a very extreme personality. I think that you are either very mistaken your purposely mischaracterizing ID's followers. We don’t have an ID day like the very stupid "Darwin day." Our side is peaceful and tolerant and the other side isn't. And this is the obvious truth. If you think otherwise you need to stop watching CNN and MSNBC and reading The New York Times, the international propaganda machines. Next youll be telling us that it is ID that is responcible for the imaginary global warming that didn't happen last year- yet of course for some reason this NEWS didn't find its way into the great all powerful and wonderful and truthful propaganda machine we know as "the mainstream media."Frost122585_{April 16, 2008
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"And I certainly don’t buy the slanderous idea that al ID advocates are militant Christian biblical literalists." Some are not but what is one to believe when the large majority of those that support ID are militant Christian biblical literalists and this group is embraced by a majority of those supporters of ID who are not biblical literalists. If someone on the outside sees this overall pattern by those who support ID and then confuses it with creationism, how can one blame them. Our pleas that it is not an accurate perception get lost in rhetoric. The ID community contributes to the conflation of ID with creationism and religion. I have commenting been here 2 1/2 years and this is what I have seen.jerry_{April 16, 2008
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And I certainly don’t buy the slanderous idea that al ID advocates are militant Christian biblical literalists.Frost122585_{April 16, 2008
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austin, fair enough but most of us dont mind teaching DE in schools- its the DE's that want ID destroyed. No, I think you might be confusing ID advocates with YEC's that also accept ID. I am not a YEC because i have issues of interpretation though I dont rule out their views-- I havent studied the geological and paleontological record enough to profess an extream belief in one particualr view. I am a free thinker and just because the rest of the world is marching in lock step doesn't mean a thing to me. I have always been that way more or less. And im not just sayning that it really is my nature. Now I am talking about ID's said view on education and sciece which is "teach both or at least mention ID because there is a real controversy. I stand by my view on Dawkins above and this just happens to support my claim that I am a free thinker. DIck did a good and prety honest job articulating his "belief" about the universe and nature. I respect that responce especially in light of his others which in the past have been at time disgusting.Frost122585_{April 16, 2008
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Frost, A key point in 74 is that ID believers I know in real life aren't honest. They believe because they're Christians who accept on faith that God created living things. Their designer is God. But they want to get ID into science classes. They know to say they don't know who the designer is. When I ask about the scientific support for ID, all they say is that Darwin was wrong. They can't answer the question, so they create a distraction. Usually with lots of emotion. So who is acting more like a Christian? The "culturally Christian" atheist Dawkins who says what he really believes even when it can be used against him? Or the ID culture warrior who hides his beliefs in order to win? Again, can a win like that be a loss in the big picture? I'm not saying every ID supporter is deceitful. But I know many who are. And I just read a claim that Ben Stein's cheering audience at Pepperdine U. were extras. Is this true? If it is, who thinks it is right? I'm talking morally, not legalistically.austin_english_{April 15, 2008
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Of course the event might not have taken place in america but the issue of freedom is what I was getting at.Frost122585_{April 15, 2008
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I actually thought he answered the question quite well. I for one take the view and have always taken it, that determinists are sort of bluffing. That it is sort of a position of faith. But its America and if he wants to be one so be it. I give Dick credit for being himself taking the question at face value, admitting the possible inconsistency of the position and leaving it at that. I can tolerate the other side and that is alot of what separates us.Frost122585_{April 15, 2008
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Stone wrote,
“If God is eternal, then he has no foreknowledge” That doesn’t really work, even if God has no beginning, his creation most certainly did. God may exist outside of our concept of space/time, but his actions within it are still temporal and have a starting point. This God you describe sounds like the God of the gaps. I think it naive to say God had no foreknowledge, when the entire universe and all that inhabits it can be summarized in mathematics, an intelligible language.
You miss the point. If God is an eternal being, then he encompasses our linear time. From our understanding, which is entirely shaped by our experience beginning and ending within time, God appears to have foreknowledge of this or that event. An eternal being can 'see the future', not by looking forward to it, but by already existing in it. None of this precludes God from manifesting within time or affecting some event, it it meant to explain how a difference in vantage point can shape misperceptions.todd_{April 14, 2008
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NEWS ALERT: The theory of co-evolution is being censored on the blog of the so-called Florida Citizens for Science! Help is badly needed.Larry Fafarman_{April 14, 2008
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So this free will thing is kind of interesting for the materialists because free will is necessary in order for anything to be created…er, for value to increase (forgot the code words for a moment there). The materialists assure us quite gleefully that matter is all there is. And since matter is a fixed thing, all that is must be, by this description, fully determined. But then how did unformed matter become informed? This was the logical stumbling block that good, old Lucretius had to overcome in order to justify his militant materialism. He claimed that some of those infinite particles he imagined flying around in the vasty void somehow developed a curvature to their course and, through fortuitous affinities of one kind or another, joined together with like-minded particles until the universe eventually came into being of its own accord. Now when everyone is done picking themselves up off the floor, please note that this explanation is not so far from the ones being offered today. Ours are much more elaborate and have colorful names like Natural Selection and the Big Bang—but it all amounts to the same thing. Somehow there was a deviation in the otherwise fixed course of nature that enabled it to increase in value. Lucretius’s curvature is free will. Bending of the rules is necessary in order to account for value. In the beginning, there was existence and nothing more, or so our sages tell us, when they are not too busy schmoozing for grants or forming dangerous liaisons with underclassmen. Some kind of qualitative resistance was required for mere existence to overcome its nothingness and obtain the great goodness seen in the universe today. Qualitative resistance was necessary for the organization of stars and star systems and galaxies, for gravity, for light. These are things of great value; the value they obtained cannot be found in unformed matter for its own sake. Unformed matter is determined by its nature to lack value. But then how do we account for the remarkable propensity it seems to have for overcoming this little obstacle? This logical problem cannot be answered any more cogently by scientists today than by Lucretius himself (hence Poor Richard’s fumble). The way materialists usually answer it, on those rare occasions when its significance somehow breaks through the interference pattern of their circular rhetoric, is to change the subject. Observe:allanius_{April 14, 2008
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[...] there are still massive philosophical absurdities associated with its denial. Bill Dembski just blogged on one of those yesterday. Second, is there any requirement that free choices be entirely conscious [...]Thinking Christian » “Unconscious decisions in the brain”_{April 14, 2008
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"If God is eternal, then he has no foreknowledge" That doesn't really work, even if God has no beginning, his creation most certainly did. God may exist outside of our concept of space/time, but his actions within it are still temporal and have a starting point. This God you describe sounds like the God of the gaps. I think it naive to say God had no foreknowledge, when the entire universe and all that inhabits it can be summarized in mathematics, an intelligible language.Stone_{April 14, 2008
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Dawkins says he is culturally a Christian. He reveals the details of his thinking even when it loses him ground in the "culture war." He admits to uncertainty and inconsistency. You might say he doesn't hide his flickering light under a bushel. In contrast, the stuff I've read here about ID is full of "blessed assurance." But it leaves out the "Jesus is mine." (I know some ID believers are not Christians. But all of them I know are.) It seems to me that most ID believers are fundamentally dishonest about why they believe in ID. Dawkins admits how denial of God leads to his beliefs. Many ID believers will not admit how belief in God leads to their beliefs. They say instead that it's all about science. But there's hardly any science to support ID, just problems with neodarwinism. Believing in ID is a matter of faith. If it's not faith in God, it's faith in intuition. I have to ask if the atheist Dawkins is acting more like a Christian than the Christians in the culture war. Why hide your light under a bushel? Why deny faith? Is it possible the culture war is really just a battle in a bigger war? Maybe winning the battle with un-Christian tactics will lose the war.austin_english_{April 14, 2008
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Over at Telic thoughts a few weeks back was a blog called God and Chance, which has some interesting metaphysical points in the comments. If God is eternal, then he has no foreknowledge, it just looks that way from our perspective. Eternal God has no future nor past, no beginning nor end. There is not really anything such as 'afterlife', if we are eternal beings. There is only 'eternal life' and 'terminal life'. It seems to logically follow that 'eternal life', if outside linear time, may be available to those along the timeline who seek it.todd_{April 14, 2008
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Thus not limiting free will, but still knowing. Indeed. God's foreknowledge is not causative. Only His deliberate intervention when He so chooses is causative. Consider Matt 11:21 and Luke 10:13 wherein Jesus foreknew outcomes in Tyre and Sidon for futures that did not happen - He foreknew a future that was not caused. We have freewill, delegated to us by God under His sovereignty. He can supercede us any time and for whatever reasons He deems suited for His purposes, but until He does, we have from Him delegated decision-making freedom and authority commensurate with our responsibility to choose and behave as He teaches.Charles_{April 14, 2008
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My one theological post: 1. tb, I think you are right. To the extent that God is outside time, we can picture time as a line and God as omnipresent throughout the space through which the line passes as well as all along the line. God can know what is going to happen further along the line without interfering or changing it. In fact, he cannot help knowing. The fact that we have difficulty understanding this is of the same character as my difficulty understanding the eleven dimensions that string theorists hold to exist. An eleven-dimensional being would not have difficulty understanding it. 2. mynym: You quote Gen 18:21. "Yahweh has to go down and see if the sin is as bad as the outcry indicates." In this curious story, three "men" visit Abraham and Sarah, and it emerges that one of them is the Lord. The other two are widely assumed to be angels, based on the subsequent events recounted. The Lord informs the couple that they will have a long-awaited son in the spring. The Lord then remains behind to tell Abraham of Sodom's impending destruction, because he, after all, will be the righteous father of a mighty nation "and all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by him".* The two angels go on to Sodom and the Lord remains behind. What follows is a classical bargaining session. The Lord begins by implying that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is not quite certain yet: "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me, and if not, I will know." Hearing the implied offer, Abraham asks, "Will you indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city ... ?" (Gen 18:23-24a) Abraham is here getting into his role as a righteous patriarch, and he bargains the Lord down to ten righteous. The Lord does not actually go to Sodom, so we may assume that he did not in fact need to go there in order to know what was happening. He needed to help Abraham understand his own future role, so he puts the matter to him as a problem, as one patriarch might put it to another, and listens to his responses. For those who have not read Gen 19, the other two "men" spend the night in Sodom barring Lot's family's door against rapists. Come the morning, they send Lot's family away to safety and then just waste the place. We can assume, I think, that there were not ten righteous there. The Lord and Moses have similar conversations in the later books of the Pentateuch. The Lord has no intention of destroying Israel because he must fulfil his promise to Abraham. But he wants Moses to tell him why he should not, given Israel's many failures. I think that is more for Moses' benefit than for his. *Gen 18:1-22 RSV 2CE 3. In general: Keep in mind that traditional theology held that humans have only one foot in nature. The other is in eternity. So long as we see ourselves as entirely natural beings, like the sparrows in the hedge, we assume we must be entirely conditioned by our natural environment. But no tradtional theologian, so far as I know, supposed that. It is a modern materialist idea that forms the thinking, unawares, even of people who reject it intellectually.O'Leary_{April 14, 2008
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If God is outside of time/space, how difficult would it be for God to see me make a decision tomorrow? Would it then be hard for God to know in advance how I will make my choice tomorrow? Thus not limiting free will, but still knowing.tb_{April 14, 2008
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"I posit this. God CAN know everything, He is all knowing,yet chooses quite purposefully and willingly to restrain this ability in order to enjoy life " ... Shouldn't that statement be then "God DOES know everything"? To pretend to be willingfully ignorant isn't the same as to not know, and to be willingfully ignorant just for the sake of petty enjoyment doesn't seem very God-like. And Yes, I would love to know what is going to happen to my life. Would certainly take the stress of uncertainty out of the question.Stone_{April 13, 2008
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Gods iPod, John Polkinghorne has said similar things before, I think. You may want to have a look at his website, he provides at least passing details there. As for Dawkins, no surprise. It's no secret that he's a philosophical lightweight (he doesn't even seem to have a real interest in those topics - he just gathers up enough references to spout an attack on religion.) That seemed like half the reason he leaned so heavily on Dennett for awhile - at least until Dennett's impact on the subject of religion was less than thrilling, and D'Souza stomped him thoroughly in debate.nullasalus_{April 13, 2008
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Freewill. I have never read this anywhere, though I am sure someone else somewhere has thought of it. But, may I suggest this idea. If I was able to give you, right now, all future knowledge of your life and your wife's and children's lives. Would you take it? I could guarantee that after you had thought about it, you would choose not to know, for life as you know would end at precisely that point. To know everything would ruin you. All joy, excitement, surprise, anticipation, hope, would be gone in an instant. I posit this. God CAN know everything, He is all knowing, yet chooses quite purposefully and willingly to restrain this ability in order to enjoy life with His creation in a way simply not possible if He chose to know everything in advance. And, this is not Open Theism, which says that God can NOT know anything before it happens. If you are aware of anyone that has published anything along these lines, please share.Gods iPod_{April 13, 2008
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" It seems improbable that something which is caused, like electrons firing in my brain, cause me to raise my arm. However, the question becomes what caused those electrons to fire? Did prior electrons firing cause them or did I, as in myself, cause them to fire?" .... The individual is a concept not a literal thing.. more of an idea used to summarize a uniformed state of motions and cycles between different organs nerves atoms molecules ect ect. I think of God as a writer and myself as simply a character in the greatest story ever written, isn't it funny though how to acknowledged this apparent bondage to a character role is also one that frees somebody? No choice, no responsibility, no thought required... what happens happens.. I rather like that way of thinking.Stone_{April 13, 2008
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