In article , Jacob Rizor says...
>

>>Subject: Re: Free Will
>>From: "zach" victorthecleaner{at}gmail.com 
>>Date: 1/21/2005 1:32 PM Central Standard Time
>>Message-id: 

[snip]

>The only real concern about free will is our modern understanding of
>conditioning, as in B. F. Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity",

But how can this be "the only real concern", when most of the
people who are
bothered by the issue, or whose spirituality is seriuosly harmed by a wrong
understanding of it, don't even _understand_ Skinner's notion of 'conditioning'?

> and the
>mechanical picture of the universe produced by Sir Isaac Newton's Laws.

Now this is certainly more widely understood, and has been having a significant
effect on the common man's understanding of 'free will' and 'determinism' for a
long time now.

>  The
>latter have been moderately compromised by the quantum probability function and
>seriously compromised by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

You write as if they were two different things. But the Uncertainly Principles
follows logically from _any_ proper application of the Corresponsdence
Principle. But withotu that 'proper application', you cannot use the "quantum
probability function" anyway.

> We Certainly
>have far less "free will" than we like to imagine- we are
largely controlled by
>conditioning.

Ah, but that is ONLY true of the "natural man" (as PSUXIKOS is so badly
translated) of 1 cor 2:14-15. The "spiritual man" is no longer ruled by his
nature, but rules his nature instead. That is why it is the faith of the
spiritual man that can move mountains (Mk 11:21-24).


>But simple thermal vibrations in our brains eliminates the idea
>of absolute determinism.

True...

> God controls us by His control of the Laws of
>Physics, but I doubt by anything else.

How can you doubt this? Are you really aware of how much Scripture you toss out
by making this assertion? Consider, for example, what I cite above, where the
man of faith can give commands that obviously violate all known physical laws:

   Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain,
   'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not
   doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says
   will come to pass, it will be done for him.  (Mar 11:23 RSVA)


>He KNOWS what we will do, but in spite
>of the irrational complaints that "if He knew we would do it, He
made us do it"
>that does not interfere with our free will.

That "irrational complaint" is not THAT irational. It is actually
quite natural
that people should believe this, until Newcomb's Paradox (for example) is
explained to them. Since omnipotence and omniscience are so different from our
_own_ experience, we should show more understanding for people who are confused
by these concepts.


-- 
---------------------------
Subudcat se sibi ut haereat Deo
quidquid boni habet, tribuat illi a quo factus est.
(St. Augustine, Ser. 96)

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