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.

 

[makesends]

Are you thinking of Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary? It defines “freewill” as “the power of directing our own actions without restraint by necessity or fate” (source).

Close enough. As I remember, what I read was, "...without external constraint."

 

[makesends]

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.

Small follow-up on our discussion on the nature of time (it might be fun to start another thread) I find it curious that those secular physicists (not that theistic physicists don't also do this) who eschew any introduction of theology into cosmology, but nevertheless ascribe to statements such as, "All time exists simultaneously", cannot (or so it seems to me that they can't) see any implications concerning both origins and the upholding of existence.

It also might do theologians well to consider how this informs the 'nitty-gritty' of what we like to refer to as "God's timelessness".

 

[makesends]

In a sense, yes.
If you are in a restaurant, you are handed a menu. The items listed are options you can select.
In a grocery store, the produce department has a list of items that are available for selection
It is availablity. Select and option are statements of limitation and select is decision, not choice.
Choice is infinite, the possibilities are endless
In our world, we have a available options and we make selections.
What is available and how the decision affects subsequent events, that choice is God's according to His good pleasure and plan.

I agree completely with the last phrase. The rest of it, I am still at a loss to understand; some of the time, I'm "duh!", and the rest of the time I'm, "huh?".

 

[QVQ]

God does not actualize any possibilities—because for him there are no unrealized possibilities.

Jesus said, "With God all things are possible," Matthew 19:26

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.

In everyday speech, "I like you" and "I am not like my cat."

I am specifically defining "choose" and "select" and using them correctly.
1)"Choose" can be any number of possible (as both @makesends @John Bauer and @Josheb have provided very long list of theoretical possibilities in response to my analogy of the truck being out of fuel)
2) "Select" is a list of specific options that are available for selection

In the vegetable analogy, you would select the vegetables, not choose them (formal English)
The cook chose them. And you have a selection, not a choice.

 

[QVQ]

qvq removed

 

[makesends]

The original quote was posted by @makesends on Post #71.
The Britannica AI on 'freewill' begins by saying, "free will, in philosophy and science, the supposed power or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe."

I was asking him if he could provide an example and he could not We both treated it as amusing and neither of us agreed with it

To be clear, I was not disagreeing with Britannica, but with the notion that humans (or any creature) could perform actions independently of any prior even or state of the universe.

 

[makesends]

The fundamental State is the cicumstances at any given moment.
The selection between red or green trucks does not change the fundamental State of Truck.
The selection of potatoes or rice does not change the fundamental State, dinner
Adam's choice did change his fundamental State.

So what? I'm not saying that as sass. I'm asking why you are pointing this out.

All that aside, the point I am trying to make is that within circumstances (providence) we have selections that are provided by God but our selection of an option does not change our fundamental state.

Ok, so how does that relate to whether or not we have choice, as you continue below?

We do not have choice. We have options to select within what God has chosen.
God provides the circumstances and we can select options within God's providence.

Yes, God provides the circumstances. Selecting from options within God's providence is "choice". How do we not have choice?

So per the OP does choice have more than one possibility. No because choice is God's and there is only one possibility, God's path as per God's plan. We are entertained by selecting options but the selections do not fundamentally change the State of God's plan.
God provides the options we can select and the selections are alway within the path and are part of the plan.

Right. In fact, our selections —our choices— are part of God's plan. Any question of whether our selections in any way CHANGE God's plan is to look at the question from the wrong end.

 

[makesends]

That is little more than a rewording of two already existing posts. It does not matter how many times the same position is restated. It does not resolve any of the existing contradictions and it does not further the discussion. It just argumentum ad nauseam. The same problem exists with the defense of the op.

His re-wording, if for no other reason, is done in an attempt to comply with my inability to follow what he is saying. I do the same, many times, because it seems to me that a reader does not understand what I am getting at. I have asked you to explain how x and y can both be true, and you repeat your thesis/posit in other words. It is normal conversation, I think.

I agree there comes a time to stop—particularly when the language has become contentious, arrogant or otherwise insulting.

 

[QVQ]

So what? I'm not saying that as sass. I'm asking why you are pointing this out.

I mean, and stated several ways, what we choose does not change our State. We have a State and that can only be changed by an act of God not by an act of will (choice/selection) I added, further we have a State (providence) in which we can select from what God has provided but we cannot select or choose anything that God has not provided.

Right. In fact, our selections —our choices— are part of God's plan. Any question of whether our selections in any way CHANGE God's plan is to look at the question from the wrong end.

Yes, the Op is Does Choice Imply More Than One Possibility. The answer is no.
Whether you use the limited selection word or choice, the answer is still No
There is One choice, God's will, and only One possibility, the Will of God
@makesends contends God causes. And others seem to believe that is linear, past to future.
I see determinism as cause, caused effect and God causes it all. It is linear However, I see the dynamic flow of selection or choice being a moving force.
@Josheb speaks of dynamic and yes, choice is dynamic but if the choices are limited to a set selection of options then it is both determined and dynamic.

In the vegetable analogy, the choice of vegetables was determined but the selected option is the choice of the consumer. (dynamic)
I am working out how the OP would look in real time as Truth has a corresponding objective reality.

I use trucks and vegetables. You all use dispensationalism.. It is as if I speak a foriegn language...

 

[Josheb]

.....if the choices are limited to a set selection of options then it is both determined and dynamic.

 

[Josheb]

.....it seems to me that a reader does not understand what I am getting at.

That's because the asserts are sometimes self-contradictory and often nonsensical in other ways.

I have asked you to explain how x and y can both be true, and you repeat your thesis/posit in other words. It is normal conversation, I think.

X is a letter. Y is a letter. Both are true. In mathematical equations X and Y can also represent numbers. That is also true. The onus on you is not to prove or disprove others' positions. As the author of the o the onus is on you to prove your own position. As I stated b4, you might prove my pov incorrect but that would not, in and of itself, prove your position correct unless X and Y are the only two possibilities.... er, I mean, options .

I agree there comes a time to stop—particularly when the language has become contentious, arrogant or otherwise insulting.

Or repetitive.

X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y,X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y,X&Y, X&Y, X&Y,X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y, X&Y.................

Yeah, yeah, I get it. X&Y. Next!

 

[makesends]

Josheb said:
God isn't influencing; He is controlling EVERYTHING.

Amen.

Not to dispute with either of you, nor to defend a position, nor specifically to point out that @Josheb may have been attempting to represent my view and not his, here, (just in case a reader misunderstands), but to further the conversation:

While there is a huge difference from the self-interested, self-centered and temporally-governed limited human POV, between "influence" and "control", if either of them are truly applicable to what God does with his creation, as opposed to a deistic notion of God beginning things and (but for occasional interventions) leaving them to develop on their own, I'd have to say that there is no difference, except as we must use such words in discussing and adjusting our thinking.

Logically, and secularly, to begin something (for example, the 'Big Bang', or the placing of a cup of water in my microwave to heat it for tea), causes EVERY resulting effect, even down long chains of causation. Every result 'was in the loins' of that cause. This I think we all three, and probably most readers will agree on. IF, (which I deny), the Big Bang was the beginning of all things, then the fact that I stubbed my toe and said words I'm not proud of, and my tea spilled and I chose to go make more, are all results of the big bang, AND, of all the myriad other causes relevant to those things (which are also results of the Big Bang). As I have pointed at before, one Science Reporter poetically pointed out, the seeds of all things we see today were in the Big Bang.

That is deterministic, both intimately and meticulously. That grand scales result, and that God has a particular resulting end to his decree does not allow for anything between the beginning and end to happen uncaused, nor —reasoning via the above juxtaposed with God's omniscience— even unintended. And, this determining MUST necessarily include the dynamics of interactions.

Now, if anyone can demonstrate how it is possible for something besides first cause to happen without being caused to happen, be my guest. If there is some strange way to consider "what is" to be other than "came to be", (other than God himself, of course), please explain it. Not even modern cosmology makes that claim, as far as I know, but for their descriptions of speculative constructions.

Now, if anyone can demonstrate how meticulous causation rules out the emotions, intelligent considerations, and force of will of sentient creatures, please have at it —particularly if you can do so by way of definitions that do not assume validity to human ways of thinking. After all, we are kinda stuck with those words. (Kudos to @QVQ for trying to wobble that dependence.)

 

[makesends]

I mean, and stated several ways, what we choose does not change our State. We have a State and that can only be changed by an act of God not by an act of will (choice/selection) I added, further we have a State (providence) in which we can select from what God has provided but we cannot select or choose anything that God has not provided.

Yes, the Op is Does Choice Imply More Than One Possibility. The answer is no.
Whether you use the limited selection word or choice, the answer is still No
There is One choice, God's will, and only One possibility, the Will of God
@makesends contends God causes. And others seem to believe that is linear, past to future.
I see determinism as cause, caused effect and God causes it all. It is linear However, I see the dynamic flow of selection or choice being a moving force.
@Josheb speaks of dynamic and yes, choice is dynamic but if the choices are limited to a set selection of options then it is both determined and dynamic.

Very good. I may be beginning to understand your terminology / POV. I do agree with your conclusions, as, I think, so does @Josheb and most other contributors.

In the vegetable analogy, the choice of vegetables was determined but the selected option is the choice of the consumer. (dynamic)
I am working out how the OP would look in real time as Truth has a corresponding objective reality.

I see only true and complete compatibilism there, the only difference being the limited POV of a thinker considering the matter.

I use trucks and vegetables. You all use dispensationalism.. It is as if I speak a foriegn language...

"Dispensationalism"? Maybe a typo? But, yes, I agree re- the "foreign language". Foreign language speakers usually have a very different way of thinking from that of any other foreign language speaker. I'm only beginning to pick up what you're putting down, and not too sure about that.