The Science of "Free Will"

[Pierac]

I would like your thoughts on the related articles.  I'm not interested in a "Free Will" debate.

I will start by going (backwards) with a few linked articals from the main site and then give the link at the end. I copied the artical because it's on a Newpaper website and I don't know how long the link would stay active.

•   Oxford Journals  Medicine Brain Volume 106, Number 3  Pp. 623-642

Brain, Vol. 106, No. 3, 623-642, 1983
© 1983 Guarantors of Brain

[size=18]research-article[/size]

TIME OF CONSCIOUS INTENTION TO ACT IN RELATION TO ONSET OF CEREBRAL ACTIVITY (READINESS-POTENTIAL)

THE UNCONSCIOUS INITIATION OF A FREELY VOLUNTARY ACT 
BENJAMIN LIBET, CURTIS A. GLEASON, ELWOOD W. WRIGHT and DENNIS K. PEARL1

Neurological Institute, Department of Neuroscience, Mount Zion Hospital and Medical Center, the Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, CA 94143 Department of Statistics, University of California Berkeley, CA
Correspondence to: 1 Present address: Department of Statistics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
Correspondence to: Reprint requests to Dr B. Libet, Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco,CA 94143, USA.

The recordable cerebral activity (readiness-potential, RP) that precedes a freely voluntary, fully endogenous motor act was directly compared with the reportable time (W) for appearance of the subjective experience of 'wanting' or intending to act. The onset of cerebral activity clearly preceded by at least several hundred milliseconds the reported time of conscious intention to act. This relationship held even for those series (with 'type II' RPs) in which subjects reported that all of the 40 self-initiated movements in the series appeared 'spontaneously' and capriciously.

Data were obtained in at least 6 different experimental sessions with each of 5 subjects. In series with type II RPs, onset of the main negative shift in each RP preceded the corresponding mean W value by an average of about 350 ms, and by a minimum of about 150 ms. In series with type I RPs, in which an experience of preplanning occurred in some of the 40 self-initiated acts, onset of RP preceded W by an average of about 800 ms (or by 500 ms, taking onset of RP at 90 per cent of its area).

Reports of W time depended upon the subject's recall of the spatial 'clock-position' of a revolving spot at the time of his initial awareness of wanting or intending to move. Two different modes of recall produced similar values. Subjects distinguished awareness of wanting to move (W) from awareness of actually moving (M). W times were consistently and substantially negative to, in advance of, mean times reported for M and also those for S, the sensation elicited by a task-related skin stimulus delivered at irregular times that were unknown to the subject.

It is concluded that cerebral initiation of a spontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin unconsciously, that is, before there is any (at least recallable) subjective awareness that a 'decision' to act has already been initiated cerebrally. This introduces certain constraints on the potentiality for conscious initiation and control of voluntary acts.

Received July 20, 1982. Revised December 14, 1982.


[size=18]Benjamin Libet[/size], 91; probed science of brain, free will
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times  |  August 28, 2007

LOS ANGELES -- Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California at San Francisco whose studies of the brain led to a new understanding of consciousness and free will, died July 23 at his home in Davis. He was 91.
Dr. Libet demonstrated that the brain starts responding to an external command before a person makes a conscious decision, suggesting that free will is a rationalization produced by the mind after the fact to explain its actions.
He also demonstrated that the mind has a very narrow window of opportunity to block such actions, a finding that suggested to some scholars that instead of a free will, the mind has a "free won't." That veto power may not seem like much, he wrote in a 1999 essay, but it is enough to satisfy ethical standards.

"Most of the Ten Commandments are 'do not' orders," he wrote.
Dr. Libet had been conducting research on the brain for nearly 20 years when he began experiments with the late Dr. Bertram W. Feinstein, a San Francisco neurosurgeon. Feinstein treated epilepsy patients by implanting electrodes deep in their brains and stimulating neural circuits.

Dr. Libet piggybacked onto those surgeries by measuring how long a signal was required to elicit a response and how long that response took. He found that the electrical stimulus had to be maintained for at least a half-second (500 milliseconds) before the patient became aware of it.

In a second series of experiments, he used electrodes attached to the scalp to measure brain activity and a second set of electrodes attached to fingers to measure their motions. Placing subjects in front of a rapidly moving clock, he would tell them to press a button or do some other activity and measure how long it took them to become aware of the decision to do it.

He observed mounting brain activity associated with the finger movement -- a previously observed phenomenon called Bereitschaftspotential or "readiness potential" -- 300 milliseconds before the patient reported that he or she was aware of the conscious decision to move the finger and 200 milliseconds more before the action began.

That, he found, was enough time to allow the subject to halt the action. "These discoveries have profound implications for the nature of free will, for individual responsibility and guilt," he wrote.
Scientists and philosophers have debated his conclusions, but no one has been able to propose a satisfactory alternative explanation for his findings.

Dr. Libet summarized his research in the 2004 book "Mind Time -- the Temporal Factor in Consciousness."
Neurobiologist Dr. Robert W. Doty of the University of Rochester, N.Y., said of the book that "his is almost the only approach yet to yield any credible evidence of how conscious awareness is produced by the brain. Libet's work is unique and speaks to questions asked by all humankind."

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Now to the main article

SCIENCE JOURNAL
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ

[size=18]Get Out of Your Own Way[/size]
Studies Show the Value of Not Overthinking a Decision
June 27, 2008; Page A9

Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought.

Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice.
"We think our decisions are conscious," said neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who is pioneering this research. "But these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn't rule out free will, but it does make it implausible."

Through a series of intriguing experiments, scientists in Germany, Norway and the U.S. have analyzed the distinctive cerebral activity that foreshadows our choices. They have tracked telltale waves of change through the cells that orchestrate our memory, language, reason and self-awareness. In ways we are only beginning to understand, the synapses and neurons in the human nervous system work in concert to perceive the world around them, to learn from their perceptions, to remember important experiences, to plan ahead, and to decide and act on incomplete information. In a rudimentary way, they predetermine our choices.

To probe what happens in the brain during the moments before people sense they've reached a decision, Dr. Haynes and his colleagues devised a deceptively simple experiment, reported in April in Nature Neuroscience. They monitored the swift neural currents coursing through the brains of student volunteers as they decided, at their own pace and at random, whether to push a button with their left or right hands.

In all, they tested seven men and seven women from 21 to 30 years old. They recorded neural changes associated with thoughts using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and analyzed the results with an experimental pattern-recognition computer program.  While inside the brain scanner, the students watched random letters stream across a screen. Whenever they felt the urge, they pressed a button with their right hand or a button with their left hand. Then they marked down the letter that had been on the screen in the instant they had decided to press the button.

Studying the brain behavior leading up to the moment of conscious decision, the researchers identified signals that let them know when the students had decided to move 10 seconds or so before the students knew it themselves. About 70% of the time, the researchers could also predict which button the students would push.

"It's quite eerie," said Dr. Haynes.
Other researchers have pursued the act of decision deeper into the subcurrents of the brain.  In experiments with laboratory animals reported this spring, Caltech neuroscientist Richard Anderson and his colleagues explored how the effort to plan a movement forces cells throughout the brain to work together, organizing a choice below the threshold of awareness. Tuning in on the electrical dialogue between working neurons, they pinpointed the cells of what they called a "free choice" brain circuit that in milliseconds synchronized scattered synapses to settle on a course of action.
"It suggests we are looking at this actual decision being made," Dr. Anderson said. "It is pretty fast."

And when those networks momentarily malfunction, people do make mistakes. Working independently, psychologist Tom Eichele at Norway's University of Bergen monitored brain activity in people performing routine tasks and discovered neural static -- waves of disruptive signals -- preceded an error by up to 30 seconds. "Thirty seconds is a long time," Dr. Eichele said.

Such experiments suggest that our best reasons for some choices we make are understood only by our cells. The findings lend credence to researchers who argue that many important decisions may be best made by going with our gut -- not by thinking about them too much. Dutch researchers led by psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam recently found that people struggling to make relatively complicated consumer choices -- which car to buy, apartment to rent or vacation to take -- appeared to make sounder decisions when they were distracted and unable to focus consciously on the problem. Moreover, the more factors to be considered in a decision, the more likely the unconscious brain handled it all better, they reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science in 2006. "The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us," Dr. Dijksterhuis said.

Does this make our self-awareness just a second thought?
All this work to deconstruct the mental machinery of choice may be the best evidence of conscious free will. By measuring the brain's physical processes, the mind seeks to know itself through its reflection in the mirror of science.
"We are trying to understand who we are," said Antonio Damasio, director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, "by studying the organ that allows you to understand who you are."

MIND READING 

Is your freedom of choice an illusion?
Your brain knows what you're going to do 10 seconds before you are aware of it, neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes and his colleagues reported recently in Nature Neuroscience.

Last year In the journal Current Biology, the scientists reported they could use brain wave patterns to identify your intentions before you revealed them.

Their work builds on a landmark 1983 paper in the journal Brain by the late Benjamin Libet and his colleagues at the University of California in San Francisco, who found out that the brain initiates free choices about a third of a second before we are aware of them.

Together, these findings support the importance of the unconscious in shaping decisions. Psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis and his co-workers at the University of Amsterdam reported in the journal Science that it is not always best to deliberate too much before making a choice.

Nobel laureate Francis Crick -- co-discoverer of the structure of DNA -- tackled the implications of such cognitive science in his 1993 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul.
With co-author Giulio Tononi, Nobel laureate Gerald Edleman explores his biology-based theory of consciousness in A Universe Of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121450609076407973.html?mod=blogs


Some of these scientist say in their studies that the results diminish our understanding of free will as we know it?  Why do you think these scientist would even bring up the issue of free will? What do you think this type of science is leading too?

Paul

[Paul Hazelwood]

There has always been an aspect of cause and effect in science.  There are countless things in life that affect  the mind.   While it appears we have this control, no one can really calculate the millions of things in life that we are subject to that can influence eveything we do.   We are not only affected by the things we can remember.

Psychology may be subject to some debate on the subject, but I personally have been shown repressed memories that indeed affected my behavior even though some people would say that I behaved how I did of my own free will.

The notion of free will is subject to just real life.   Is there a cause behind the choice to like chocolate ice cream?   Are picky eaters making a free will choice to only eat certain food so that they can enjoy eating or are they really in a type of bondage and deny this bondage to continue believing they have free will?

Our control in life is sought daily by most everyone.  Even as we understand scripture saying we have no free will, do we honestly understand it entirely, are there not still things in our life that we want and try to control?
   
It is interesting that in spirituality it is considered a Law, but it is placed into the control of man.   If anyone has heard about "The Secret" that is a full blown lesson on the Law of Attraction.  It is actually wrong to call it a LAW, as it cannot be demonstrated in every case that if you think positively that only good things will happen.

The "out" is that the person did not think correctly in the first place,  how convenient.   It is interesting how this way of thinking has infiltrated many many churches.  If you believe and pray truly from your heart God will bless you.  If you pray and do not get blessed then you must not of believed enough in the first place, how convenient.


Just throwing some things out there.

[Craig]

Good stuff.

Freedom of Will is a noun phrase and the words are not independent of the phrase itself. I will say this again for people to recognize. Freedom of Will, is not a will without constraint, it is ability to make a choice. That doesn't mean that it is an easy choice, or the most obvious choice, but when you have more than one option, you have the freedom of will to make that choice.

[Pierac]

OK guys, how do you generate a thought? Do you create them or do they randomly pop into your head? Like when your driving down the road thinking about work, and all of a sudden your thinking about your child hood after seeing a sign about ice cream? Where do our thoughts come from? We don't consciously generate them, so what decides what thoughts randomly come into our head?

Makes you think!   :laughing7:

Paul

[Craig]

OK guys, how do you generate a thought? Do you create them or do they randomly pop into your head? Like when your driving down the road thinking about work, and all of a sudden your thinking about your child hood after seeing a sign about ice cream? Where do our thoughts come from? We don't consciously generate them, so what decides what thoughts randomly come into our head?

Makes you think!   :laughing7:

Paul

Free-will does not have anything to do with how or why thoughts come. Whether subconsciously or consciously, if a thought comes, we have a choice to follow through or not with that thought. That choice, is free-will. It continues to amaze me, how many times this needs to be explained, and how many times fallacy is used to support an anti-free-will stance.

[Paul Hazelwood]

The main aspect of not having free will is if our will is free to make a certain choice.   This isn't saying we do not make choices,  it is about what our choices are free from.

If God directed pharoah, how was his will free, how was his choices free?  In the face of two clearly defined options, will that choice be free from the effects of living through a life of experiences, will it be free of spiritual influence?

How does Proverbs 16:9 allow our choices to be free? 

[Craig]

The main aspect of not having free will is if our will is free to make a certain choice.   This isn't saying we do not make choices,  it is about what our choices are free from.

If God directed pharoah, how was his will free, how was his choices free?  In the face of two clearly defined options, will that choice be free from the effects of living through a life of experiences, will it be free of spiritual influence?

How does Proverbs 16:9 allow our choices to be free? 

Let me say this again nicely.  :bgdance:

Every time there is a free-will debate, the first thing people fail to do is define what free-will means.

Freedom of Will, is not a Will that is Free. These are two completely different things. One is a noun phrase the other is an adjective. Do anyone understand this? In fact, Freedom and Free are not the same either! One is a noun, the other is an adjective.

The first thing that needs to be pointed out, free-will does NOT mean free from anything. When a person sees the word, "free" and think the "free" in "free-will" is the same as the word, "free", this is fallacy (an error in logic and reasoning) called s Hasty Generalization. In fact this fallacy is the constant misunderstanding of free-will. The noun phrase Free-will is not the adjective Free.

Let me go through a couple things about "Free":

Dictionary definition: free (adjective):
Enjoying personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery: free people.

Free is defined as someone who is not in slavery. So when I say I am a free man, does that mean I am free from the laws of physics? Am I free to fly around or grow and shink? No, the free in this definition, is talking about free from slavery.

Uncombined chemically: free oxygen.

Free is defined as uncombined chemically. So when it says free oxygen, it isn't talking about what hospital's administer through a canister is free. No, it is the difference between a combined chemical H2O and an uncombined chemical O.

Not containing a specified substance (often used in combination): a fat-free burger.

Free is defined as not containing a specific substance. So when I eat a fat-free burger, does it mean I won't get fat? Many people will tell you this to be true, but science has proved that fat isn't what makes you fat, so a fat-free burger though free of fat, can make you very fat if you eat enough.

Free (adjective):
1)The ability to do something.
2)The liberty to do something.
3) Independence to do something.

In order to remove all limitations from free is a limiting adjective needs to be added to a the description adjective "Free" such as 'absolutely free'. Though free, as you can see, has many different meanings, it has 49 separate and different definitions in the dictionary, some which even contradict each other.

Ironically, Free-will is not actually free will. The hyphen means that it is not the adjective 'free', it is a condensed noun phrase "Freedom of Will"

Simply stated, Freedom of Will, is not Freedom from, or Freedom to, but a Freedom of. Each and every person has Freedom of Will, not Freedom from, or Freedom to.

Will (noun):
1)The faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions.
2) The act or process of using or asserting one's choice; volition.
3) to decide, bring about, or attempt to effect or bring about by an act of the will.

We do not have freedom from restriction when it comes to what we are conscious about, we are not all knowing. We are restricted by the knowledge we have, in order to be fully aware and conscious of our deliberate action. The freedom of will, means God has given us all a will of our own.

Just like free soil, doesn't mean someone didn't pay a mortgage on that land, and is talking about political freedom.

Start focusing on what exactly is our freedom, what is it that we are free concerning.

[Paul Hazelwood]

Start focusing on what exactly is our freedom, what is it that we are free concerning.

Thats why I posed the question concerning Proverbs 16:9

So given what you said,  how is free defined concerning that verse?

[Craig]

First concerning Pharaoh, he had a choice and he made it; so God hardened his heart in order to prevent Pharoah from changing his mind. When we read it, we realize that Pharaoh had already made up his mind, all God did was strength Pharaoh's already previous decision into keeping the Hebrews in slavery. This is something people forget, the Hebrews were already slaves in accordance to the will of Pharaoh in the first place.

How is free defined concerning Proverbs 16:9?

Proverbs 16:9
In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

The freedom of will comes in planning his course. It does not guarantee that a man will achieve what he plans, only that he has the freedom of will to plan it anyways. In the end, God always has determined the Beginning from the End. This is another problem with free-will debate. Augustine had added proposition of power and determination in the noun phrase of 'free-will', prior to this, this was not the case. Everyone prior to Augustine believed in free-will, and that God determined our course. Augustine invented a new definition of Free-will, in which we determine our course. As you can see, Augustine is wrong, free-will is the plans and choices of our course, but it is God who determines it.

[Sarah]

From what I understand, it sounds like the study is concluding that we don't even have the capacity to consciously make a choice because it is made in our body before we are even aware of it.

Am I reading this wrong?

[Paul Hazelwood]

(Romans 9:17)  For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be declared in all the earth.


My belief is to see how we were designed.   The problem with science is that the spiritual side of things cannot be accounted for. 

Scripturally, I am designed to respond to influence and make choices.  If God raised pharaoh up to do what he did then pharaoh's freedom of choice is not how it appears. God had already determined the choices pharaoh was to make.  To suggest otherwise would be to say that God did not plan pharaoh's actions in the beginning and was surprised at what happened.  Upon learning what pharaoh did God then reacted to pharoah.

Thats far from anything scripture explains.   Is pharaoh clay or the potter.  What direction can clay take apart from the potter.   What is the free in the clay?



What is harder to grasp I think is that while God designed me and God knows in advance every single choice I will make,  it still is me that makes the choice and is aware of whats going on.

So the sense of freedom is that I am indeed an individual and I indeed am aware of my choices,  I am indeed making those choices, but God has ultimatly set the path of cause for every choice I make to come about.

Now why is that freedom?   Because Gods love will not fail to bring us to him.


The freedom in the clay is that a perfect loving potter will make it nothing but beautiful.

[Michele]

What's interesting about the Potter and the forming of clay is that the Potter cannot form the clay without becoming very dirty, and covered in the very same clay He is forming. (IMHO this is symbolic of Christ putting on the flesh)

However, the question for me is -- Why would the Potter *Knowingly* form the clay into a vessel made for destruction?

Why would an artist create something just so that he can destroy it?  The only time I've seen an artist detroy their own creation is when they do not like what they've made, and they want to start over and try again.  Brings to mind when God repented for making man, and then He brings the flood.....and then starts anew with Noah and his family.

I believe that we have a piece of the creator in us.  Most of us are asleep and don't realize this.  That is why Jesus said -- Father forgive them...they don't know what they're doing.

[Craig]

Scripturally, I am designed to respond to influence and make choices.  If God raised pharaoh up to do what he did then pharaoh's freedom of choice is not how it appears.

You are thinking outside the limitations of what is normal for man to comprehend. Whether or not God established the choices, does not exclude Pharaoh from having freedom of will to plan his choices. Whether it appears or not, the freedom of choice, as a result of the freedom of will, is present regardless if a person has the power to fulfill their own choices.

God had already determined the choices pharaoh was to make.

If you are basing your understanding on Proverbs 16:9, let us read it again.

NIV    In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.
NASB The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.
AMP   A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.
KJV    A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
YLT   The heart of man deviseth his way, And Jehovah establisheth his step.

Using the NIV, you have made a fatal error in your reasoning. It is the only translation that uses the word 'determine', and you took this the slipperly slope definition of pre-determination.

In his heart a man "chashab" his course, but the Lord "kuwn" his steps.

Here is the Hebrew word and now recognize what it was saying.

kuwn
1) to be firm, be stable, be established
....a) (Niphal)
.......1) to be set up, be established, be fixed
...........a) to be firmly established
...........b) to be established, be stable, be secure, be enduring
...........c) to be fixed, be securely determined
.......2) to be directed aright, be fixed aright, be steadfast (moral sense)
.......3) to prepare, be ready
.......4) to be prepared, be arranged, be settled
....b) (Hiphil)
.......1) to establish, set up, accomplish, do, make firm
.......2) to fix, make ready, prepare, provide, provide for, furnish
.......3) to direct toward (moral sense)
.......4) to arrange, order
....c) (Hophal)
.......1) to be established, be fastened
.......2) to be prepared, be ready
....d) (Polel)
.......1) to set up, establish
.......2) to constitute, make
.......3) to fix
.......4) to direct
....e) (Pulal) to be established, be prepared
....f) (Hithpolel) to be established, be restored

God did not 'determined', as you think 'determine' means. Pharaoh did indeed plan in his heart his course, God did not change those plans, God helped establish those plans, guiding Pharaoh in the choice he had made ensuring it would come to pass that he would not set them free. God did not pre-determined Pharaoh's plan, God established and ensured Pharaoh's plan.

To suggest otherwise would be to say that God did not plan pharaoh's actions in the beginning and was surprised at what happened.  Upon learning what pharaoh did God then reacted to pharoah.

Not at all. You do not recognize your conclusion is erroneous. Perhaps by accident, you have used  fallacious argument not based in reality. You forgot the proposition that God is all knowing. Therefore, God cannot learn, nor is God ever surprised. Saying that, there is nothing that says God cannot act willfully knowing what was going to happen. The reality is God did not plan Pharaoh's actions, listen closely, He knew of Pharaoh's actions before he was ever born; therefore God planned for Pharaoh's actions raising him up for God's own purpose when the time came for Pharaoh to decide and act.

God could have interceded directly in Pharaoh, and gave him a change of heart to let Mose's people go, but God did not. Instead, He hardened the already hard heart of Pharaoh so that Pharaoh's way would be established and no change of mind would come, in order that God's Power would be manifest to all the known world.

You see, God knows all things, He has chosen in His omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence, which events He would use for His purposes.

Everyone is completely free to act and think as they choose; that does not mean how they act and what they choose is free from influences which establish their actions and the choices they choose. Nor does that mean they have the power to do what they want to act, and what they choose. Nor does it mean that what they thought they were doing would result in what they desired to do. Nor does it mean the choices they make, will do what they thought they should do.

God has never pre-determined anything, He foresaw all things, and pre-destined all things.

Here are some points in Scripture, in which God publicly confesses that there are things Israel did, which He did not pre-determine them to do.

Jeremiah 7:31
They [Israel] have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I [God] did not command, nor did it enter my mind.

Jeremiah 19:5
They [Israel] have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I [God] did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.

Jeremiah 32:35
They  [Israel] built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I [God] never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.

Without freedom of will, we could not do that which God never commanded, nor entered his mind. Without freedom of will, we could not sin and fall short of the glory of God. Without freedom of will, there is no need to repent for anything. Without freedom of will, there is no need for forgiveness. Without freedom of will, love is only one-sided and never returned.

I find so many holes in the anti-free-will defense, that makes me wonder if it was actually thought through completely.

So the sense of freedom is that I am indeed an individual and I indeed am aware of my choices,  I am indeed making those choices, but God has ultimatly set the path of cause for every choice I make to come about.

Now why is that freedom?   Because Gods love will not fail to bring us to him.

The freedom in the clay is that a perfect loving potter will make it nothing but beautiful.

As long as you are not making the mistake to confusing the noun, Freedom, with noun phrase, Freedom of Will (That again is a hasty generalization and misunderstanding of how language works; freedom of the will is not freedom, it never has been.), then you have hit on the issue of what freedeom of will is.

[Paul Hazelwood]

God could have interceded directly in Pharaoh, and gave him a change of heart to let Mose's people go, but God did not.

Just because God could have and did not does not mean that pharaoh's actions was not already planned.

Instead, He hardened the already hard heart of Pharaoh so that Pharaoh's way would be established and no change of mind would come, in order that God's Power would be manifest to all the known world.

The scripture says that pharaoh was raised up for Gods purposes.   By what manner was pharaohs heart made hard in the first place?  Creation was subject to Vanity not willingly.   

You see, God knows all things, He has chosen in His omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence, which events He would use for His purposes.

You are depicting a God that did not design the very existance he is interacting with. 


God has never pre-determined anything, He foresaw all things, and pre-destined all things.
[/quote]


Ecclesiastes contradicts that reasoning. 

Ec 3:1 For everything there is a stated time, And a season for every event under the heavens:

For something to have a stated time, it had to be planned.

[Michele]

God has never pre-determined anything, He foresaw all things, and pre-destined all things.

Yes.....Infinite possibilities -- all things are possible if you believe.....

Hmmmm....so it seems like this -- God sees the end result.....we live the journey to It.

Before you begin something it's always customary to envision it First.  Christ is the greatest visionary of all time!

"Veni, Vidi, Vici"

[Craig]

God could have interceded directly in Pharaoh, and gave him a change of heart to let Mose's people go, but God did not.

Just because God could have and did not does not mean that pharaoh's actions was not already planned.

They were not already planned, they were planned for. God planned for Pharaoh's actions before Pharaoh was ever born to act.

Instead, He hardened the already hard heart of Pharaoh so that Pharaoh's way would be established and no change of mind would come, in order that God's Power would be manifest to all the known world.

The scripture says that pharaoh was raised up for Gods purposes.   By what manner was pharaohs heart made hard in the first place?  Creation was subject to Vanity not willingly.

Free will, has nothing to do with what is done willingly or not. How many times does this have to be presented before it becomes clear?

You see, God knows all things, He has chosen in His omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence, which events He would use for His purposes.

You are depicting a God that did not design the very existance he is interacting with.

Not at all, you do not understand the paradox you have created by using a hasty generalization. You have presented an argument which has no basis in reality. As a result, your conclusion is based on something that is not rational. If God is creator of all things, then He is the creator of all things, He started creation on it's course knowing full well where that creation is going. On the seventh day, He rested, what happened on the day He rested? That is when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and followed their own desires. God did foresaw this, the day he placed them in the garden with the tree of knowledge, and God established the decisions they made by adding a command not to eat of it.

You commit the same error as the athiest who challenges God's omnipotence by presenting the question, "If God is all powerful, can he create a stone so heavy He cannot lift it?" If you say yes, then He is not all powerful since He cannot do something; if you say no, then He is not all powerful since He cannot do something. It is a leading question, which has no basis on reality. The question, "Can an all-powerful God create an object so heavy He can't lift" is actually a leading question. It is not based in reality, and therefore, is a non-relevant presupposition. Such philosophy rhetoric has been refuted as being non-rational argument. The answer is "No". Just because the answer is "No" does not make God not all-powerful because He cannot do something. That presupposes that creating an object so heavy He cannot lift was already outside His control, since why would God do this unless that is what He intended; therefore establishing that He is indeed all-powerful to begin with.

God has never pre-determined anything, He foresaw all things, and pre-destined all things.

Ecclesiastes contradicts that reasoning. 

Ec 3:1 For everything there is a stated time, And a season for every event under the heavens:

For something to have a stated time, it had to be planned.

NIV There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under heaven.
NASB There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.
AMP  To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven.
KJV To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven
YLT To everything -- a season, and a time to every delight under the heavens.

Where did you get that "'stated' time" phrase from? It is not found in Scripture.
The word is: zĕman
1) a set time, appointed time, time

The word is:`eth
1) time
....a) time (of an event)
....b) time (usual)
....c) experiences, fortunes
....d) occurrence, occasion

Funny thing, that verse in Hebrew is only four words:

"zĕman`eth chephets shamayim" which literally means
It is appointed on occassion to experience good pleasure under the sun.

A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

It is a general statement concerning all things. It is a broad general statement followed by the specific statements of what is appointed for man to do. It is appointed that a man will do these things, but does not give a reference in what specific time such as "On July 3rd, 2008 at 3:10:46 MST" Craig will write a refute to Paul, explaining that Free-will is not what Paul continues to say it is. It says, simply, because we are men, we shall experience a time for everything a man shall experience.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong,nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

As we keep reading what King Solomon was writing about in the later verses. He then states the season and the time of things. He is simply stating the things that every man goes through at a time in their lives.

If you continue reading, you read that King Solomon does not rule out free-will, he rules out free-will being anything but profitable. This is the key.

Also, King Solomon, did not write Ecclesiastes as a simple 'how to' or 'what is' book. It starts off as King Solomon is angry at God, because no matter how wise King Solomon was, it caused much sorrow; and the no matter how knowledgeable King Solomon was, it caused grief.

Ecclesiastes 1:18
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

Ecclesiastes 2:21
For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.

I tell you, the more you know how meaningless your free-will is, the more life becomes vanity. The meaninglessness of free-will, does not mean free-will does not exist. It just means, that the more you try to do things your own way, the more miserable you will be and lose everything you achieved with your free-will.

Ecclesiastes 2:26
To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Somethings I guess you will learn the hard way. We have freedom of will but this is meaningless, a chasing after the wind since the only things that we can achieve with our freedom of will, turn to dust and given away.

I know why 'Universalists' and 'Calvinists' continue to convince themselves to believe we have no freedom of will. For the Calvinist, it removes their security that they were chosen and for the Universalist, the security in their salvation. Such reasons are emotional appeals, basic fallacies, that have no relevance to the reality of anything. They argue against it, because their doctrines depend so much upon it.

Ecclesiastes 3:19-20
Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

The reality is, no matter what your free-will is, you will die. No matter all the choices in the world, creating great wealth, or great misery, everything dies. Nothing any man does, even if it affects his generations after him, has any value or relevance, because everything dies. Therefore, it does not depend on those even on those who believe on His name, but on those who were born, not of blood nor will of the flesh nor the will of man, of God. Our hope relies not on anything we can do, others can do, in this world, this age, but completely and totally dependent upon the choice of God concerning what He does with all things. This is what King Solomon knows as the vanity of vanities concerning creation.

So what is it we can do?

Ecclesiastes 3:12-14
I know that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime; I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10
Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 11:9
Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

There is more, but at this appointed time, I have no time to expand on it.

[Craig]

Another thing, Free-will is a not self-determination. Free-will doesn't have enough knowledge to even determine what the end will be, no matter what choice they though they were doing to achieve it.

[Reverend G]

It seems to me that they claim we have "free won't", not "free will".  The difference really is semantics.  Also, to whom does our subconscious mind belong?  It may be guided by our life experiences, but it is our subconscious.  The idea that 70 percent of the time they could predict peoples responses is not that unusual considering the size of the sampling. Even a coin toss averages a 50 percent correct guess.  Is that astounding?  No.  So given a small sampling of human subjects, the researchers interactions with these subjects, and the fact that they can learn the person's choices from the earlier answers, a 70 percent predictability is not unusual.  Now give me 100 percent, and you may have something.

[Paul Hazelwood]

I suppose there may be a difference in our sources of information of the Hebrew text.

I use scripture4all.org and the program there.   Using that I see 8 words with the last one not really having a strongs reference.  Feel free to go look at the verse at that place.

The strongs reference numbers in order are as follows.

h3605 h2165 h6256 h3605 h2656 h8478 h8064


h2165 is where I get a stated time, thats how it is literally rendered.

H2165  zman  zem-awn'

from H2163;

an appointed occasion:--season, time.


You can try to make some emotional dig as to why universalists do this or that, but your reasoning is irrevalent,  lets stick to how we are seeing scripture, thank you very much.

[Paul Hazelwood]

Another thing, Free-will is a not self-determination. Free-will doesn't have enough knowledge to even determine what the end will be, no matter what choice they though they were doing to achieve it.

Now this we can agree on and maybe I have not done a very good Job at explaining everything.

I think the point is that if we are not the determining factor of our destiny, who is and how does that affect our choices?

[Craig]

You can try to make some emotional dig as to why universalists do this or that, but your reasoning is irrevalent,  lets stick to how we are seeing scripture, thank you very much.

Paul Hazelwood, Did you ignore the fact I did in order to point out something that is actually not irrelevant?

My reasoning is not irrelevant since it is strictly based on Scripture. Taking me out of context to establish your position, is your problem, not mine.

What is very relevant, is the fear free-will establishes in those who do not trust in the Lord. After debating this issue for the last 12 years consistently that is what consistently it comes down to, the persons emotional reaction to even thinking, either of God being surprised (which is what you presented if free-will exists), an insecurity of their salvation (stick around that is the major objection to free-will from Universalists and Calvinists), and an insecurity that God is not in control (which again is what you presented). So I must conclude, if you pass off this VITAL piece of reasoning for why people are anti-free-will, then you do not know what it is you are actually debating.

Can you say this?
Free-will does not means you are free. Free and free-will are not talking about the same thing.
Free-will is not free of other forces. When two wills collide, you still have free-will regardless if you or the other will loses to the stronger will. You can die fighting God, that is your free-will to do, but that still doesn't change the fact that you lose and God wins. People can either use their freedom of will to advance a godly lifestyle and enjoy life receiving blessings from God in everything they do; or they can use their freedom of will to advance sin and disobedience and receive the product of what they have sown, near cursed and it's end in fire; either way, in the end of all things you end up is exactly where He wants you to be.

This is very difficult for people, because they were always taught that their free-will determined their destination of heaven or hell; according to the Church Fathers previous to Augustine, there was no violation of free-will in determining a persons destination, everyone in the even in the end will choose God out of their own volition out of gladness and not discouragement. They will all be where they truly wanted to be all the time.

I think the point is that if we are not the determining factor of our destiny, who is and how does that affect our choices?

1) Free-will has NO determining factor concerning our eternal destiny.
Everyone dies, no matter what they decide, no matter what they do, and no matter who they affect on their journey.

2) God determines our eternal destiny.
Everyone is pre-destined to life. It is not the will of God for any to perish. It matters not on free-will, birthright, or any other fact. It solely relies on the choice of God who has placed all mankind in the hands of His Son, Jesus Christ who is the Savior of all mankind and when lifted up, drawn all men unto Himself.

3) The knowledge of the Truth, completely affects our choices based on if you accept it or not.
Everyone will be revealed the knowledge of the truth, those who accept it will build up heavenly treasures; while those who do not will build up earthly treasures which will perish because they are based on works of the flesh.

When you say, "If we are not the determining factor of our destiny, who is?" the answer is God. This has nothing to do with Free-Will.
When you say, "How does that affect our choices?" It opens up new avenues for us to pursue to the glory of God. This has everything to do with Free-Will.

[Craig]

It seems to me that they claim we have "free won't", not "free will".  The difference really is semantics.  Also, to whom does our subconscious mind belong?  It may be guided by our life experiences, but it is our subconscious.  The idea that 70 percent of the time they could predict peoples responses is not that unusual considering the size of the sampling. Even a coin toss averages a 50 percent correct guess.  Is that astounding?  No.  So given a small sampling of human subjects, the researchers interactions with these subjects, and the fact that they can learn the person's choices from the earlier answers, a 70 percent predictability is not unusual.  Now give me 100 percent, and you may have something.

It is actually 80% of the human population is predictable. It is scientifically proved.

[Paul Hazelwood]

Can you say this? Free-will does not means you are free; free-will is not free of other forces.

Yes.

Now can you say what we are free of as briefly?

[Reverend G]

So you are saying that their results were substandard?

[Craig]

Can you say this? Free-will does not means you are free; free-will is not free of other forces.

Yes.

Now can you say what we are free of as briefly?

Since free and free-will are not the same subject, it is quite irrelevant to tell you what we are free of in consideration of free-will. Has this yet stuck?