Comments on: Free Will: First Problem of Rejecting it–Denying its Possibility Denies God’s Sovereignty

By: barry

barry — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:45:42 +0000

Joel, you are right on the mark. Not only do I not argue in this post that determinism itself is a contradiction, but I could not do so consistently. It would be ironic (at least) for me to argue that there is no choice to make about whether the world is determined or radically free!

By: Joel

Joel — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:53:07 +0000

I’m not so sure that determinism faces a contradiction since the determinist doesn’t have to say that God has to create a deterministic world, just that he did, which you also seemed to say in your post- “Now whether He did create such a world or not is a different matter.” However, I completely agree the premise- denying the possibility of free will denies God’s sovereignty- since I would much rather, ideologically, hold on to God’s (radical) freedom than my own.

By: Luke Britt

Luke Britt — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:23:14 +0000

Thanks for the post. I’ll be keeping up.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:15:35 +0000

The classical form of “Dieter’s” position is from Leibniz. More recent and moderated forms of the position are in people like John Feinberg.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:32:04 +0000

Good post… do you know of any authors/thinkers that actually try to use this argument against free-willers? I have heard it in conversation but I don’t recall it being a major debate amongst scholars.

By: Andre Ward

Andre Ward — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:45:13 +0000

WHOA!!!