Part 1/8 (From Cheungs, Author of Sin) Please hold all comments until all 8 parts are posted. Thanks. The next 7 parts will be posted in the comments section. First, the fact that God controls all of our thoughts and actions does not make us robots and puppets, because even when completely controlled by God, humans are very different from robots and puppets. Humans have minds–they reason, decide and emote. In fact, since our identities are preserved even when we are disembodied, it is more accurate to say that humans are minds that live in bodies. Robots and puppets are not minds, but are entirely physical objects. They have no thoughts to be controlled, but only physical parts and properties to be manipulated. Some of our thoughts are occasions for physiological events. There is no inherent and necessary relationship between. mind and body, but it is God who directly controls both, usually correlating the two. Nevertheless,we are still different from robots and puppets, since they have no thoughts at all. Their physical movements are not occasioned by their own thoughts, since they have none, but by the thoughts of those who use their hands and instruments to control them. And it is in fact God who directly controls them all–the human mind, the relationship between the human mind and the human body, the human body itself, and the relationship between the human body and the instruments, the robots and the puppets. That is, on the occasion that God directly acts on one (for example, when he causes the human mind to decide to move a finger), he also directly acts on the other (in this case, he causes the finger to move). Remember that the objection does not explain why it is a problem for humans to be robots and puppets, and this is one reason why it fails before we even answer it. So we are pointing out the differences that humans have against robots and puppets not because the objection compels us, but because we are addressing the topic in spite of the objection. The differences are there to be noted, so that even if humans are completely controlled by God, they are unlike robots and puppets. Second, although sometimes unstated, the objection falsely makes human freedom the basis of moral responsibility. The assumptions are: (1) It is necessary to affirm that humans are morally responsible; (2) Moral responsibility presupposes human freedom; and (3) Robots and puppets are not free. Given these assumptions, the objector rightly reasons that if God is absolutely sovereign, then humans are not free. Then, he likens these humans, who are not free, to robots and puppets, which are also not free.This in turn means that humans are not morally responsible if God controls all things, but since it is necessary to affirm that humans are morally responsible, it means that we cannot affirm that God controls all things.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 22:28:10 +0000
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