Does choice imply more than one actual possibility?

[John Bauer]

No, that would be the case among those not believing in non-meticulous control.

I am left to wonder if the author even wants to be understood, expressing himself in ways that are so logically opaque. What is this double negative supposed to articulate? If non-meticulous control is a denial of meticulous control, then “not believing in non-meticulous control” means believing in meticulous control. But then why wouldn’t he just say that?

I don’t know. This is why I wonder if he actually wants to be understood.

Among determinists, such as compatibilists who believe in meticulous divine control, there is no dispute about causal sufficiency. Compatibilists believe “the agent’s total motivational state at the moment of choice—beliefs, desires, values, character, reasons, dispositions, circumstances—is sufficient to explain why this choice occurred rather than another.”

So, if Josh meant, “That would be the case among those who believe in meticulous control,” then he is simply mistaken. Either he has misused his terms, or he has misunderstood compatibilism (which is a kind of determinism), or he is contradicting himself. Is there a fourth option?

The dispute arose because Josh suggested that an agent can act in antithesis or contrary to the total set of causal forces and influences bearing on the will, both known and unknown. Ergo, the agent’s act is apparently underdetermined by the agent himself. So, what is the sufficient condition of an action, such as choosing one thing rather than another?

Note for the readers: There are two schools of thought that believe free will and determinism are incompatible: libertarianism (which rejects determinism) and hard determinism (which rejects free will). Compatibilism, or soft determinism, denies that these are mutually exclusive ideas. This isn’t a zero-sum game. Both free will and determinism are true, and nobody has ever explained it better than Jonathan Edwards in his 1754 book usually abbreviated as Freedom of the Will.

Makesends is a subscriber of meticulous control. He's more Pinkian than Sproulian.

I think Josh errs here. Judging by what I have read so far, Makesends appears to be articulating the no-rogue-molecule view of R. C. Sproul, the pedagogical defender of Edwards—which is why I suspect that Makesends is a compatibilist.

Moreover, A. W. Pink is in the same camp as Edwards and Sproul. While he affirms human responsibility, he doesn’t labor to reconcile it conceptually with divine causation; he is content to assert both on biblical grounds and dismiss objections as rebellious or fleshly. Consequently, Pink is sometimes erroneously perceived as a hard determinist. (He is definitely not.)

This op is not about compatibilism. It's about strict determinism.

This demonstrates to me that Josh misunderstood the original post (OP), in which Makesends anticipated the objection that his position reduces to physical or mechanistic determinism and explicitly denied it. In reading his OP, one learns that he doesn’t think mental acts are merely “materially derived by long-chain causation.” That means he’s not a hard (strict) determinist. But he also rejected libertarian spontaneity, so he is not an incompatibilist in either sense. And he affirms mind, intention, and desire as real secondary causes—as did Edwards, Sproul, and Pink.

So, this thread appears to be precisely a discussion of compatibilism, which would put my remarks on point.

(It also strikes me as weird that Josh would confidently proclaim what the topic of the OP is, when we have the author of the OP active in the thread to speak for himself.)

… this op is about determinism, not compatibilism or cosmological synergism or cosmological human volitional autonomy.

Does anyone have any idea what on earth “cosmological human volitional autonomy” is supposed to be?

Listen, inventing compound phrases doesn’t insulate a position from critical analysis. If the concept cannot be cashed out in familiar philosophical currency, it isn’t doing explanatory work.

Then you'll have to take that up with someone who believes influences do not determine.

I did exactly that, I believe. Josh said “there are many influences influencing (not determining or forcing).” If he thinks influences do determine, this certainly didn’t make that clear.

If influences determine, then what was the point of the word substitution?

If that is what my posts have been construed to say then go back and re-read them.

To construe them that way again? What would be the point? Why wouldn’t Josh simply explain where and precisely how someone misconstrued what he said?

I don’t know, honestly.

That is incorrect. Re-read my posts. Re-read makesends posts, too because this op is asserting God and God alone as a control, not anything else

As we can see by the subsequent response from Makesends—where he denied that his OP asserted “God and God alone as a control, not anything else”—I am not the one who needs to re-read.

There are no influences other than God …

I am not aware of any case where that is true. For example, I am routinely influenced by my love of chocolate. A car thief is influenced by a police officer pointing a firearm at him. And so on.

God isn't influencing; He is controlling EVERYTHING.

Amen.

There are a few sentences in the defense of this op that seem to say otherwise but they are inconsistencies and contradictions - flaws - in the assertion and defense of the op.

Alternatively, they are corrections that Josh failed to grasp, viewing them as inconsistencies because they conflict with his construal of the OP.

I do not know why this isn't being grasped but this op is asserting what I have called the "action figure" God, …

Did you notice that Josh completely ignored my explicit criticism of that very thing and simply reasserted it here?

Yeah, me too.

Edited to add: What makes this truly ironic is that he said elsewhere, “I will not be collaborating with posters who ignore what was posted.”

That is incorrect. None of what I posted was by "fiat."

When Josh claims that determined choices are “a choice in name only” but offers no independent criterion (i.e., that isn’t already equivalent to “not determined,” which would be question-begging), that excludes compatibilism by fiat. He is presuming to settle a substantive philosophical dispute by definitional decree rather than by argument.

Is there any dictionary that defines choice as an act that is not causally determined?

No.

As I said, “Lexically, choice means something like ‘the act of selecting or deciding.’ It doesn’t encode a causal theory or modal metaphysics, and dictionaries don’t define choice as requiring indeterminism or multiple causally open futures.”

Thank you for your time but I am not collaborating that.

Cool.

That was a poor choice.

Thanks for sharing your opinion?

 

[QVQ]

qvq removed off topic

 

[John Bauer]

qvq removed off topic

Question for you: Why can’t you allow yourself to say that God and man both have choices but God’s are unlimited while man’s are limited?

 

[QVQ]

Question for you, QVQ: Why can’t you allow yourself to say that God and man both have choices but God’s are unlimited while man’s are limited?

Because, why use many words when one word will do?

There are differences between choice and select
God has unlimited choice to actualize all possibilities (infinite)
God provides man with options to select (limited)

God can choose
Man can select

* strictly speaking I am using precise meaning. The words "choose" and "select" are synonyms but so are "like" and "prefer." However when I say I am not like my cat the word "like" has a different meaning. The definition is in the context.

 

[Josheb]

I am left to wonder if the author even wants to be understood, expressing himself in ways that are so logically opaque. What is this double negative supposed to articulate? If non-meticulous control is a denial of meticulous control, then “not believing in non-meticulous control” means believing in meticulous control. But then why wouldn’t he just say that?

I don’t know. This is why I wonder if he actually wants to be understood.

I am inclined to agree (which is why I first commented about articulation) but we're supposed to keep the posts about the posts, not the posters.

I think Josh errs here.................. Moreover, A. W. Pink is in the same camp as Edwards and Sproul...........

Perhaps. I read Pink to be much more determinist than Sproul.

(It also strikes me as weird that Josh would confidently proclaim what the topic of the OP is, when we have the author of the OP active in the thread to speak for himself.)

Yep. In this op's own words all the comments and inquiries are framed in the context of God, not the sinful human. ALL of them! In addition, I quoted the author, taking assertions from a pair of other threads, proving the op is, in fact, a strict determinist so that any reader might better understand any real or perceived ambiguity in the context of statements made elsewhere.

Does anyone have any idea what on earth “cosmological human volitional autonomy” is supposed to be?

LOL

The op is about the ontology of creation. Is God determining everything? Is creation all already determined? In modern vernacular we're discussing the nature of the cosmos or the universe. I could have said "creational ontology," or "universal ontology," but they have their own problems. Cosmological human volitional autonomy simply means the cosmos is controlled by human volition. No one I know believes that, but the other poster was simultaneously asserting a creation/universe/world/cosmos that had constraints and no constraints. The phrase was absurdity designed to highlight the sophistry, the appearance of reason, with rhetoric of my own.

Listen, inventing compound phrases doesn’t insulate a position from critical analysis. If the concept cannot be cashed out in familiar philosophical currency, it isn’t doing explanatory work.

LOL It wasn't intended to.

The rest of the post is, sadly, more nitpicking misrepresentation of my posts .

 

[fastfredy0]

Because, why use many words when one word will do?

Amen

 

[John Bauer]

Because why use many words when one word will do?

Indeed. Hence, my question: Why not just use one word (choice)?

There are differences between choice and select.

Of course, the former is a noun and the latter is a verb.

But in everyday speech there is no meaningful difference between choose and select.

• I had two options. I chose one.
• I had two options. I selected one.

God has unlimited choice to actualize all possibilities (infinite).

That may work for you and some people, but I have serious problems with it. As your statement here admits, possible implies “not actual”—you don’t actualize something already actual—which would involve a contradiction if applied to the biblical God of classical theism, compromising aseity, simplicity, and actus purus (pure actuality).

God does not actualize any possibilities—because for him there are no unrealized possibilities. There is just the actual world known to him and his eternal decree in an ever-present now. “In God there is no was or will be, but a continuous and unbroken is,” wrote Aiden W. Tozer. “In him, history and prophecy are one and the same.” As Charles Spurgeon said, for God there is no set past and no unrealized future; “What we call past, present, and future, he wraps up in one eternal now.”

Metaphysical possibility is not something God consults and interacts with. There are no modal facts that exist independent of God and his eternal decree from which he can choose and actualize. Anything that has existed, does exist, or can exist is only from, through, and for him who knows the end from the beginning and ordains whatsoever comes to pass with an eternal act of will.

Creaturely contingency is real. There is no such thing as divine contingency.