KCDAD said:
I freely choose and I am a willful creature therefore I have free will. No one can force me to do or think anything.
First of all, I don't think you're quite being fair. Elman *does* have a tendency to pretty much just assert his positions, without much in the way of argumentation or engagement of others' positions.
In this particular case, for example, he didn't really engage ToddNotTodd's position at all but rather blithely ignored it as far as I can see.
Nor has really addressed my statements. We know that he 'doesn't believe in magic,' but we also know that he 'doesn't believe our thoughts are totally controlled by chemistry' either. So what are processes that aren't obedient to the laws of chemistry/physics, but yet aren't 'magical?' He has nothing to say on this point, which is has been much of the crux of my argument about freewill in this thread (that is, that no one who believes in it can *coherently* say what it *is!*).
I've had a lot of interchanges with elman, and I believe him to be a man of goodwill and honesty, so I don't think that he does it on purpose; it is just that he is a person of very strong personal convictions and it tends to come out in his style of communicating. He believes what he believes and if he can't make a good argument as to why, or can't make a good argument as to why an opposing view is wrong, well that's just the way it is.
So I can see how to people who are more used to, well, really *debating* ideas, his style can be a bit off-putting. I *like* elman and think I know *why* he presents his ideas as he does, and I *still* find it off-putting at times.
But apart from that....
What do you mean by 'freely choose?' If all you mean is choose without any external influence into the thought processes that go into your choice then I'd agree with you.
But is that all you mean?
On the other hand, it is *theists* generally, who posit the intervention of outside agents into people's choice processes--e.g., God 'hardening Pharoah's heart,' Satan messing with people, etc.; not metaphysical naturalists like myself--so I'm not sure you're not contradicting yourself, sort of.
'No one can force me to do...anything?' I'm not sure about that one. I suppose it's a matter of definition. I mean, suppose I had your mother at gunpoint and ordered you to rob a bank lest I kill her, and you did it. Would I have forced you to do it, or not?
On the other hand, 'No one can force me to...think anything?' I don't disagree with this, but I'm not sure what it buys you in terms of freewill. As far as I can see, people think what they *do* and believe what they *believe,* without much say in the matter.
If you don't believe me, then try, even for a moment, to *not believe* something you now *do* believe. Can you do it? No, most people believe what they believe because it is what seems most sensible to them, or because it his how they've been trained to think through the course of their lives, etc. It is not a matter of choice, by and large.
So I don't think that this thing is anywhere near as simple as your arguments suggest.
On another tack, it seems that one general thing that many Christian freewill adherents have in common--and it's implicit in your statements here--is the idea that the individual *must* in the final analysis, be completely accountable for his actions, beliefs, etc.
Never mind that according to psychology, brain science, etc., we *know* that much of what people believe, much of what they *like,* and, hence, much of the basis of the choices they make, are functions of their acculturation and innate biology.
And never mind the fact that, as I said, much of what people generally believe is what they're capable of believing.
And never mind that in our institutions, such as law, we recognize that accountability is not an absolute but must be assigned on a continuum, based on consideration of things like mental state ("sanity"), intent, and even to some extent on knowledge of the law (in some cases).
No, these things we all know, but when it gets to the idea of free will *in the abstract,* it must exist, because...why? I think it is a matter of theology. Without freewill and hence, the ability to affix the accountability for any given individual's choices, beliefs, actions, etc., 100% squarely on him, much of certain strains of Christian theology (not all, e.g., some strains of Calvinist thought) falls apart.
In many strains of Christian thought, freewill is necessary to counter the Problem of Evil; it is difficult to assert the concept of Original Sin as being reconcilable to any reasonably humanistic system of ethics without freewill. Etc.
In the final analysis, I think that many people believe in freewill because they *must* in order to reconcile their theology with their consciences. I suppose that if one is convinced that his theology is correct, this makes sense; but to me, someone who has pretty much never had any use for theology, it seems completely backward. IOW, I start from looking at what we understand about how the world works and how people work, and I have a hard time understanding how freewill as commonly put forward could exist, which is probably pretty much exactly the opposite of how many Christians of certain theological flavors approach the issue.
Again, I think it's a 'never the twain shall meet' sort of thing.