What causes people to choose what they choose?

[night912]

No. The mistake you are making is assuming that God perceives "before we do it" in the same way as us.

So god doesn't have foreknowledge?

in the same way as us.

So you're saying that God's perception doesn't exist in reality, or God himself doesn't exist in reality?

 

[muhammad_isa]

So you're saying that God's perception doesn't exist in reality..

Not our "reality", no.
G-d is not a person living in the universe.
G-d is not even a person.
G-d is of infinite nature, which we can't fully comprehend.

 

[night912]

Not our "reality", no.
G-d is not a person living in the universe.
G-d is not even a person.
G-d is of infinite nature, which we can't fully comprehend.

If God doesn't exist in reality, then why do you still hold to your belief that God exist?

 

[muhammad_isa]

If God doesn't exist in reality, then why do you still hold to your belief that God exist?

..because I don't assume that what I see as "reality" is absolute.
My perception of "reality" is formed by my senses and experiences living in this universe. I don't assume that that is all there is. Why should I?

I have a gut feeling that this universe did not come about by chance .. did not come about without purpose. There is something behind it all. We call it God. I believe that G-d has communicated with chosen human beings, and that the major Abrahamic scriptures are a result of that.

 

[Link]

We are with who we love. Choose to love God, his chosen, and their believers, and you will be with them. Reject the truth out of rebellion towards God and his chosen, and having animosity towards believers and you end up in hell.

A simple choice:

...say no reward do I ask for it except love in the kin....(42:23)

 

[Brian2]

I'm not entirely convinced that people choose. The longer I live, and the more I study, the more our "choices" seem to be the net result of our biology and experiences.

I think you have a point but I do not conclude that people do not choose, rather I conclude that our will is not completely free.
"Free will" is a misnomer but I accept it as just a term for us having a will as opposed to things being pre-determined.

 

[halbhh]

I do not believe in predetermination. If everything was predetermined then there would be no free will.

I believe that some things that happen to us are subject to free will and some things are not, because they were predestined by God and we have no control over them.

I believe that God is responsible for both the Good and the Bad things that happen to us, those things that are predestined and thus beyond our control.

“Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.” Some Answered Questions, p. 248

Man is compelled to endure the Bad things that happen to us because God set it up that way since we live in a material world where some of the Bad things happen are beyond our control. Some of these Bad things are caused by the free will decisions of other people and some of them are simply accidents and misfortunes These are our destiny, our fate, for which God is responsible.

Actually I'd agree with every bit of that except only how some (not you or me, but some non believers) would take the the extra emphasis in the last sentence to support their commonplace assertion that God 'is evil' -- because humans suffer in their mortal bodies and die, and it seems to non believers to prove God is evil (and the whole also illustrated by specific instances when God destroyed entire cities of people in scriptures), since they assume that death of this temporary mortal body is a final real death.

They think all the people that have died are still dead.

If it were the case that the death of this mortal body were a final real death, then those non believers would be correct in their reasoning. But of course, the basic definition of God is that He causes the death of this temporary body to be only merely like "sleep" (to use the word that is most often used in the common bible about mortal death), from which He will awaken all.

 

[halbhh]

Exactly. People are often confused by a predetermined universe, and God's ability to know the future .. believing them to be the same thing, but they are not.

A predetermined universe implies that God determined it before we chose, but God knowing the future simply means that He has some unknown mechanism for knowing our choice .. often portrayed as a different perception of 'time'.

No that's not an error I make, nor many others I bet.

It's a reasonable guess though, so I like it you are trying to figure it out.

Better would be to ask me what I think, for instance, than to guess, really.

 

[Trailblazer]

Actually I'd agree with every bit of that except only how some (not you or me, but some non believers) would take the the extra emphasis in the last sentence to support their commonplace assertion that God 'is evil' -- because humans suffer in their mortal bodies and die, and it seems to non believers to prove God is evil (and the whole also illustrated by specific instances when God destroyed entire cities of people in scriptures), since they assume that death of this temporary mortal body is a final real death.

They think all the people that have died are still dead.

If it were the case that the death of this mortal body were a final real death, then those non believers would be correct in their reasoning. But of course, the basic definition of God is that He causes the death of this temporary body to be only merely like "sleep" (to use the word that is most often used in the common bible about mortal death), from which He will awaken all.

Of course, since nonbelievers do not believe there is an afterlife that is a game changer.
And if there was no recompense in the afterlife for all the suffering in this life, especially for those of us who suffered a lot, then God could not be considered loving or just.

“O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you will, no doubt, attain.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 329

 

[Brian2]

There are many instances in scripture of us doing what God did not foresee (because He made us like Himself, with true agency). Let's look at one.

Before the Flood:
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

Why do you think that God regretting making humans and wanting to wipe us out shows that God did not know about that. Do you think that God looks impassively on everything without any passion or feelings?

Another:
Jeremiah 19:5 They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal--something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind.

It never entered God's mind that the Jews should burn their children. That does not say anything about God not knowing that they would do that.

Or would the New Testament be even more decisive to help show it? --
Luke 8:45 "Who touched Me?" Jesus asked. But they all denied it. "Master," said Peter, "the people are crowding and pressing against You."

Jesus was a man and living as a man trusting in God His Father for everything that He received, including knowledge of who touched Him.

==> All commandments God gives to us in scripture only make sense if we can choose to do them. Ergo, we are able to choose what is not already determined ahead of time(!)....

Or ask if you want additional examples, please.

I'm sure you could find more examples that to me do not show what you say they do.
The thing is that God's knowing the future does not mean that God has determined the future, it means that God has seen the future. God has seen what we will freely do. That is what it means.

But God does know the future (!).

(did I just surprise you?)

This way -- He has chosen certain things to bring about and He surely will bring them about -- they are therefore predetermined! And He knows them ahead of time.

It can be hard to find scriptures where God's foreknowledge is spoken of and it is not about His foreknowledge of what He is going to do. But those scriptures do exist and some of them show God's foreknowledge about things that we would not expect God to be doing. Eg when Jesus said to Peter that he would deny Him 3 times and when Agabus in Acts told Paul about what would happen to him in Rome etc. etc
Jeremiah 1:5, Romans 8:29, Psalm 139:4, 1Peter 1:1,2, Ephesians 1:4, etc
So even though it might appear to solve some problems for you I think the scriptures show that God does know the future, even those thing that God is not going to do.

 

[muhammad_isa]

The thing is that God's knowing the future does not mean that God has determined the future, it means that God has seen the future. God has seen what we will freely do. That is what it means.

That is correct.
That is not to say that G-d cannot intervene if He wills, but overall, it is our choices that determine the future.

 

[KWED]

G-d is of infinite nature, which we can't fully comprehend.

You seem to claim to comprehend him very well. Otherwise, how can you make these claims of knowledge about how he does and doesn't operate?

Basically, you are attempting to construct your own version of god who doesn't negate free-will - which is entirely understandable.

 

[KWED]

My perception of "reality" is formed by my senses and experiences living in this universe. I don't assume that that is all there is. Why should I?

Unless you have evidence or rational argument for things existing beyond this universe, why would you insist that is a a reality?

I have a gut feeling that this universe did not come about by chance .. did not come about without purpose.

And we all know how reliable "gut feeling" is.

I believe that G-d has communicated with chosen human beings

How did he do that if he doesn't exist within this universe?

 

[KWED]

Exactly. People are often confused by a predetermined universe, and God's ability to know the future .. believing them to be the same thing, but they are not.

A predetermined universe implies that God determined it before we chose, but God knowing the future simply means that He has some unknown mechanism for knowing our choice .. often portrayed as a different perception of 'time'.

Islam contains both concepts, so any difference you may claim is irrelevant in practical terms.
If "the outcome of all affairs is determined by Allah's decree", then the mechanism by which he knows future events is because he decreed them.
Therefore no free will.
QED.

 

[Sheldon]

It can't be "nothing" .. there has to be something ultimately responsible for a person who drives a car along the road.
Any sane person knows that. Einstein knew that. We all know that.

That's the second time you have misrepresented Einstein on this issue:

<LINK>

"Einstein was what philosophers call an Eternalist. His philosophy did not allow free will of any kind."

"People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion."

 

[Sheldon]

Not our "reality", no.
G-d is not a person living in the universe.
G-d is not even a person.
G-d is of infinite nature, which we can't fully comprehend.

You seem to be reeling off assertions about something you claim you can't fully comprehend, pretty convenient since you don't even pretend to demonstrate any objective evidence for your claims.

You also said the future was "set in stone", and now appear to contradicting that claim yet again.

Is it set in stone as you claimed, or can we change it with free will? Can we use free will to make any of the available choices, or must we make the exact choice a deity knows we will choose, before we perceive making it, as you also claimed? You seem very confused here.

 

[John53]

You seem to be reeling off assertions about something you claim you can't fully comprehend, pretty convenient since you don't even pretend to demonstrate any objective evidence for your claims.

This is what baffles me, I keep getting told God unknowable then the same people start to rattle off a heap of supposed facts about God.

 

[muhammad_isa]

"Einstein was what philosophers call an Eternalist. His philosophy did not allow free will of any kind."

Philosophical gobldigook.
Einstein didn't think that people weren't really driving their cars. He wasn't that stupid.

"People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion."

Exactly. Time is not what it appears to be. "It hasn't happened yet" is purely our perception.

 

[Sheldon]

Philosophical gobldigook.
Einstein didn't think that people weren't really driving their cars. He wasn't that stupid.


Exactly. Time is not what it appears to be. "It hasn't happened yet" is purely our perception.

So having twice misrepresented Einstein on this issue, you now wave away the fact he did not believe in free will. Do you expect people to take you seriously when you're that dishonest?

 

[Sheldon]

Sheldon said: ↑
"People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, he said, is an illusion."

Exactly. Time is not what it appears to be. "It hasn't happened yet" is purely our perception.

So you agree with Einstein, that our perception of free will is an illusion?

You went further than this already of course, claiming that "the future is set in stone." yet still keep contradicting that claim, by asserting we can change it.