Re: [asa] Free will by a human being a natural or a non-natural cause?

At 10:11 AM 9/14/2007, Carol or John Burgeson wrote:

>Friend Moorad asked: "Is the exercise of free
>will by a human being a natural or a non-natural cause?"

[[ "Pretty natural I'd say.' ~ Pim Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:08:21 ]]

>I think this is a great question. And I also
>hold that the answer MUST be "non-natural. John
>Polkinghorne's writings have gone a long way to
>my current understanding." ~ Burgy

@ Public Radio Interview [excerpt]:

Ms. Tippett: I think you also bring your theology
and your science together interestingly in seeing
that there's also something going on in the
world, including human beings' interaction with
nature at any given time, that there are sort of
competing freedoms. I think that's a very interesting, complex idea.

Mr. Polkinghorne: Yeah. Well, I think we live in
a world of true becoming. That's to say, I don't
think that the future is fixed; I don't think God
fixed it. I think God allows creatures to be themselves.

Ms. Tippett: Does God know it?

Mr. Polkinghorne: If we live in a world of true
becoming so that we play our little parts in
making the future ­ and I believe God's
providence also plays a part in making the
future, and also the laws of nature that God has
ordained play a part in constraining the form of
the future ­ if that's the sort of world in which
we live, then I think actually even God doesn't
know the future. And that's not an imperfection
because the future is not yet there to be known.
Now, that's a very controversial view, and not
everybody, by any matter of means…

Ms. Tippett: We'll let you have it here.

Mr. Polkinghorne: …has agreed with me about that,
but that's how it seems to me. And I think that,
you see, there's been a very important
development in theological thinking in the 20th
century, and it's reflected in all sorts of quite
different theologians, but they have this thing
in common: They see the act of creation, the act
of bringing into being a world in which creatures
are allowed to be themselves, to make themselves,
is an act of love and it is an act of divine
self-limitation. The theologians like to call it
kenosis from the Greek word, and so that God is
not the puppet master of the universe, pulling
every string. God has taken, if you like, a risk.
Creation is more like an improvisation than the
performance of a fixed score that God wrote in
eternity. And that sort of world of becoming
involves God's accepting limitations, and I
believe, accepting limitations not knowing the
future. That doesn't mean, of course, that God
will be caught out by the future in the same way
that you and I are. I mean, God can see how
history is moving, so to speak, but God has to
react to the way history moves. Now, that makes,
to me, quite a lot of sense about the
world. ..."
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/quarks/transcript.shtml

@ Another perspective on the subject of liberty
and free-will; what is natural and what is non-natural:

"....Liberty, on the other hand, is not
derivative of anything. It is a spiritual gift,
ours to receive or reject. Liberty itself exists
independent of free creatures, whereas rebellion
only exists in them. Liberty is “an immutable
essence in which creatures may either participate
or not participate.” It is “the possibility of
manifesting oneself fully, or being perfectly
oneself,” a reflection of the “ineffable liberty
of the Infinite” (Schuon). The leftist would
like to bestow this gift of liberty upon you, as
if it ultimately derives from him, not from God.
But ..." Continue here:
http://tinyurl.com/2wfafk Scroll down to
Saturday, April 29, 2006 [copy and past link
into your browser if it doesn't work by clicking it]

>"[See] My review of THE MIGHTY AND THE ALMIGHTY,
>by Madeline Albright" [snip] ~ Burgy

@ See an accurate psychological evaluation of
those who think their perceptions are reality by
clicking here http://tinyurl.com/2wfafk and
scrolling down to: Saturday, April 29, 2006

~ Janice

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Received on Fri Sep 14 12:10:09 2007