Worthy sentience of moral agents?

[makesends]

Concerning free will, and the argument that humans, moral agents, are endowed with some worth as made in the image of God, and as sentients, and willed beings capable of abstract thinking, resulting in the notion that only by free will are we to be held responsible for our choices:​

A friend tells me of a time she had woken up in bed with blood all over the place, and a gash over her eye, no memory of what happened. She remembered going to get drunk in her garage, as was her habit, (because she wouldn't smoke in her house), but little else.

My question is, Did it hurt when she fell and hit her head? Was she a different person, when she could only stagger into the house, from who she was after she woke up? Did the expected cause-and-effect and responsibility for her actions change because she no longer remembered what she did or what happened? Does she cry because somebody pushed her?

Where is the continuity of sentience and supposed respect from God between us in this life and the person we are in the next?

What is this life, compared to the next? Who are we, in this life, compared to what we are in the next?

We are not yet the complete beings to be revealed in Heaven. And those consigned to everlasting torment have lost even what virtue they thought was theirs.

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

Even though believers are made new, they remain responsible for who they were. Their sins are forgiven but they do not become an entirely new person in the sense of losing personal identity—only in the sense of being spiritually reborn. Something is added, not taken away.

Does memory affect responsibility?

I doubt that moral responsibility is contingent on memory. After all, if someone commits a crime while drunk, they are still responsible even if they don’t remember it. (While laws vary by state, courts across the country typically hold that voluntary intoxication does not excuse criminal responsibility.) The same principle applies to that lady's fall—the injury was a consequence of her actions regardless of whether she remembers anything. Forgetting what happened doesn't change what happened.

Are we the same person over time, especially in light of 2 Corinthians 5:17?

Believers are a new creation in Christ, but this doesn't mean we become a different person in the sense of losing our past identity. Rather, it means that our nature has changed—we are spiritually reborn, freed from the power of sin and given a new identity in Christ. However, this transformation is moral and spiritual, not metaphysical.

• Before salvation, we were enslaved to sin.
  
  ​
• After salvation, we are freed and made new.
  
  ​
• But in both cases, we are the same individual, just under a different moral and spiritual condition.

This is why Paul, despite being a new creation, still identified himself as the same person who once persecuted Christians (1 Timothy 1:13-16). His past actions were still his own, but his nature and standing before God had changed.

How does this connect to divine justice and the afterlife?

If we are "incomplete" now, then there is a real sense in this life being preparatory: We are being shaped into what we will be in eternity. For believers, that means justification and sanctification now and glorification later. For the lost, it means the gradual loss of even the moral goodness they once had, as God gives them over to their depravity, culminating in eternal separation from God.

The key takeaway is that who we become in eternity is the fulfillment of a trajectory established and realized in this life. Our decisions matter because they are the fruit of either someone who is a new creation or someone remains the old creation, both of whom remain the same identity throughout their moral and spiritual change.

 

[makesends]

Even though believers are made new, they remain responsible for who they were. Their sins are forgiven but they do not become an entirely new person in the sense of losing personal identity—only in the sense of being spiritually reborn. Something is added, not taken away.

Does memory affect responsibility?

I doubt that moral responsibility is contingent on memory. After all, if someone commits a crime while drunk, they are still responsible even if they don’t remember it. (While laws vary by state, courts across the country typically hold that voluntary intoxication does not excuse criminal responsibility.) The same principle applies to that lady's fall—the injury was a consequence of her actions regardless of whether she remembers anything. Forgetting what happened doesn't change what happened.

Are we the same person over time, especially in light of 2 Corinthians 5:17?

Believers are a new creation in Christ, but this doesn't mean we become a different person in the sense of losing our past identity. Rather, it means that our nature has changed—we are spiritually reborn, freed from the power of sin and given a new identity in Christ. However, this transformation is moral and spiritual, not metaphysical.

• Before salvation, we were enslaved to sin.
  
  ​
• After salvation, we are freed and made new.
  
  ​
• But in both cases, we are the same individual, just under a different moral and spiritual condition.

This is why Paul, despite being a new creation, still identified himself as the same person who once persecuted Christians (1 Timothy 1:13-16). His past actions were still his own, but his nature and standing before God had changed.

How does this connect to divine justice and the afterlife?

If we are "incomplete" now, then there is a real sense in this life being preparatory: We are being shaped into what we will be in eternity. For believers, that means justification and sanctification now and glorification later. For the lost, it means the gradual loss of even the moral goodness they once had, as God gives them over to their depravity, culminating in eternal separation from God.

The key takeaway is that who we become in eternity is the fulfillment of a trajectory established and realized in this life. Our decisions matter because they are the fruit of either someone who is a new creation or someone remains the old creation, both of whom remain the same identity throughout their moral and spiritual change.

Yes, but my point is not that one's identity changes, but that one is not the integral unit one supposes oneself to be.

The argument proffered by those insisting on self-determinism is something along the lines that God owes them, and that it is not just for God to intend suffering --thus it can only be free will that causes suffering. As I said, the notion that we are sentient, and made in the image of God, to them means that God holds us worthy of a certain respect as sentient beings, and not as tools or inanimate objects. To them, that would not be "loving".

I'm saying that if one can't even remember their suffering, why consider it relevant to the question of what God is making of his creation? Scripture says that it is as a woman who 'forgets' the pain of childbirth for the joy over the newborn. So why do we consider this life tragic, and God unjust to intentionally cause pain and suffering for his own purposes (i.e. not necessarily as punishment)? Why 'undeserved' pain, unless it is a result of free will gone badly?

Who do we think we are, anyway?

 

[Josheb]

​

My question [are],

Did it hurt when she fell and hit her head?

Yes. Pain is a physiological response that, while the sensation or the awareness of that sensation, may been dulled by alcohol, the effect occurred, nonetheless.

Was she a different person, when she could only stagger into the house, from who she was after she woke up?

She was the exact same person. Her degrees of awareness and responsiveness were what had changed, not her "personhood."

Did the expected cause-and-effect and responsibility for her actions change because she no longer remembered what she did or what happened?

Bad question due to compound conditions and undefined terms.

Does she cry because somebody pushed her?

Who said she cried? What did she cry? She was pushed?

Where is the continuity of sentience and supposed respect from God between us in this life and the person we are in the next?

On her nightstand. She can pick it up anytime. Due to the unstated assumptions and poorly defined terms this is another bad question.

What is this life, compared to the next?

You men compared to the next time she gets drunk? I wouldn't call drunkenness much of a life.

Who are we, in this life,

mortal and corrupted, and if the "we" pertains to all humanity then unknown and unknowing

compared to what we are in the next?

If the "we" refers to all humanity then the answer is, "dead in the midst of eternal destruction," but if the "we" pertains to those in Christ then the answer is, "immortal and incorruptible; known and knowing."

We are not yet the complete beings to be revealed in Heaven. And those consigned to everlasting torment have lost even what virtue they thought was theirs.

How does that apply to the hungover, bloody, recall-less woman?

 

[makesends]

Yes. Pain is a physiological response that, while the sensation or the awareness of that sensation, may been dulled by alcohol, the effect occurred, nonetheless.

She was the exact same person. Her degrees of awareness and responsiveness were what had changed, not her "personhood."

Bad question due to compound conditions and undefined terms.

Who said she cried? What did she cry? She was pushed?

On her nightstand. She can pick it up anytime. Due to the unstated assumptions and poorly defined terms this is another bad question.

You men compared to the next time she gets drunk? I wouldn't call drunkenness much of a life.

mortal and corrupted, and if the "we" pertains to all humanity then unknown and unknowing

If the "we" refers to all humanity then the answer is, "dead in the midst of eternal destruction," but if the "we" pertains to those in Christ then the answer is, "immortal and incorruptible; known and knowing."

How does that apply to the hungover, bloody, recall-less woman?

The point I had hoped to make, is that our continually changing life, even full of differences of how we feel about what happens, or even forget what happens, should tell us that we are not the consistent freewillers we think ourselves to be.

A more extreme example would be someone who decried the hard things in life, screaming unfairness, then gets shot in the head and undergoes a complete change of personality. He is indeed the same person, but not the person he thinks he is, but only the person God says he is.

A friend of mine fell, hit his head on concrete, and couldn't even remember whether he had a girlfriend or what his position was with God. What matters is what God says he is.

If we can't remember what was so important earlier, why do we suppose God owes us any respect as sentient moral agents?

When a person believes that the things of this life, specially the hard things, are of such substance as to be called up in justifying God or blaming God, (and not wanting to blame God they have to resort to "free will"), they are missing the whole point. This life is not for this life. "This is nothing" is not far from the truth. We are not substantial right now. We are thrown about by all sorts of things, and our focuses change all day. We are not wise, why do we suppose that our assessments right now are of any value?

We are children, throwing a fit when things don't feel good. Who do we think we ARE?

God has every right to do as he pleases with us, even if what he does to us feels disastrous.

 

[Josheb]

The point I had hoped to make, is that our continually changing life, even full of differences of how we feel about what happens, or even forget what happens, should tell us that we are not the consistent freewillers we think ourselves to be.

That is true, but that insight is dependent on some modicum of awareness...... which, in turn, is another indication of a lack of autonomy.

A more extreme example would be someone who decried the hard things in life, screaming unfairness, then gets shot in the head and undergoes a complete change of personality. He is indeed the same person, but not the person he thinks he is, but only the person God says he is.

That example depends on the definition of "person." If personhood is personality dependent, then that person is not the same. However, being a different person does not absolve anyone of their obligation relevant to moral agency. When two rams abusively butt heads with one another to win a mate no one imagines that is a moral matter and those rams should be arrested for assault. Two men in a fight would be correctly construed to be culpable of moral and legal lapse. I assume the gun shot individual survives because the dead know nothing . Furthermore, both God and Man make allowances for TBI and being shot in the head does not give anyone a get-out-of-judgment pass.

No one is free.

A friend of mine fell, hit his head....

I'm a psychologist who spent the first half of his career working with the developmentally disabled, TBIs, and the last half of his career working with abuse survivors, combat veterans, clinical personality disorders, and others who've suffered sometimes violent alterations to the brain.

on concrete, and couldn't even remember whether he had a girlfriend or what his position was with God. What matters is what God says he is.

If we can't remember what was so important earlier, why do we suppose God owes us any respect as sentient moral agents?

When a person believes that the things of this life, specially the hard things, are of such substance as to be called up in justifying God or blaming God, (and not wanting to blame God they have to resort to "free will"), they are missing the whole point. This life is not for this life. "This is nothing" is not far from the truth. We are not substantial right now. We are thrown about by all sorts of things, and our focuses change all day. We are not wise, why do we suppose that our assessments right now are of any value?

There's a lot of "gray area" that warrants sorting and shouldn't be conflated. I believe, however, we can all agree most, if not all of it, would not exist in a sinless world. TBIs due to physical accidents might, but not those due to willful violence.

We are children, throwing a fit when things don't feel good. Who do we think we ARE?

We think we're gods. What we are is dead in sin.

God has every right to do as he pleases with us, even if what he does to us feels disastrous.

Yep.

Often have I said the moment sin entered humanity the entire lot of us became refuse with which God do as He pleases. It is from the dead and enslaved that God, by grace, chose some to be other than which they were. There does not exist ANY liberty to be other than that..... no matter how much a person might will it (assuming any person ever willed thusly to begin with).