> Not at all; I was in fact trying to sidestep that whole argument. > I tend to think that kids have more free will than typically > given credit for, and rather dislike the trend towards holding > parents responsible for their kid's deliberate acts; yet I don't > want to go so far as to say that the parents should have no blame > when their child goes bad, as their raising may well have > contributed. Ah. Fair enough. > Can does not mean "actually does". True. But when I hear the comment (and I've heard it quite a bit) "Everything happens because it is Gods will", that means, to me, he "actualy does". I used "can" as the overall. To hear some say it, he can. To hear others, he does. > While an omnipotent God COULD control everything that happens, > and doing so would in fact make him responsible for it, the > whole "free will" argument is that he does not cause things to > happen. It's "could intervene, does not" rather than "direct > cause". Then why the arguments that nothing happens without Gods say-so? If he *could* intervene, but doesn't, then some things happen that are not his intention. If it's his intention, then he intervened. > You must ponder this, grasshopper. How can you become > enlightened without proper pondering? Believe me, I've pondered and debated this one quite a bit...:) > The answer, in any case, is simple: think of all the things you > do, day in and day out, to predict what happens next. Avoiding > other cars while driving, avoiding other people while walking, > even just knowing who you will see at work or school or home. > Those are all knowing, to a certain degree, but not removing the > choice of the participants. This is different than predeterminism theory (in my mind). The theory is that everything that happens is already planned out, set in stone, is in "Gods Plan", etc. That being the case, one can argue that my avoiding other cars while driving, other people while walking (or driving:), knowing who I'll see at work, has already been decided. That's not much of a choice, in my eyes... > The other answer is to postulate a God who is outside of time -- > that is, the entirety of time is visible and accessible in a > non-linear fashion. Again, no removal of choice; perception is > not causation. Oh, sure. We can use that to cancel out this whole thing. And then I can toss out that, if God created everything, he damn well created time, too. Then I'd just have to have a talk with him about that aspect and how it relates to everything else he's created. I still think that you cannot have free will and a predetermined fate at the same time. If my actions have already been decided, and nothing I do can change it, I can't make a concious choice (I may *think* I make a choice, but I actualy don't). (And yes, I've seen too many episodes of Red Dwarf to not have some understanding of what I'm talking about...:) Cheers! Chris (who finaly had to start mass-deleting the 1000+ emails he had when he got in this morning...<grin>:0-)