Free trade

Stawson’s thesis in this article was that people cannot be ultimately morally responsible for their actions because they cannot be the cause of their actions. There are three views when it comes to moral responsibility. Stawson believes in a deterministic view. This is that every action is determined by a set of previous actions. Stawson in this article first starts by laying out his main arguments for this: nothing can be causa sui, the cause of itself, in order to be responsible for your…

God informs Abraham that he would become “the father of many nations” and would receive a vast land (Genesis 17:5-8 NIV). The completion of this prophecy depended on Abraham's free decision to trust and have faith in God. Many free decisions would lead to his descendants leaving egypt, because Moses freely chose to trust and obey God (Exodus 3:18-4:17 NIV). Nowhere in these passages indicate that God forced these decisions, in fact Moses and God argued…

Why God Gave Humans Free Will Before we can ask questions such as, “Why did God give humans free will?” we must first understand exactly what free will is and how it affects us in our daily lives. Free will is the choice we are given to decide between right and wrong. C.S. Lewis describes free will as this, “God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right.” He goes on to say, “If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad.” God gives us a…

victim of free will. Free will is regarded as the potential to choose, form opinions and to act voluntarily. In this case of study, Oedipus Rex,written by Sophocles, translated by Dudley Fitts & Robert Fitzgerald, Oedipus, is the author of his own free will and is not a victim of fate. Not under any oppression of the deities, Oedipus is a young protagonist that stirs himself into trouble by his self-determination and his independence to do what he pleases. It is determined that not only his…

driving him to confess his crime to the police as well as pressuring him to accept religion. Not only does she comfort and provide Raskolnikov with a shoulder to cry on, Sonia also exemplifies within the work various central themes. Themes such as “free-will,” “poverty,” and “family” are all epitomized…

Destiny Cat’s Cradle doesn’t only cast doubt on the usefulness or wisdom of searching for truths, but also the ability of a person to control their own destiny is questioned. Do we create our own meaning or are we just following a path already laid out for us? It seems Vonnegut thinks life is meaningless and that there isn’t a God that sets a path for us to follow. Destiny is not controlled by someone or something more powerful than us but by what the generations before us has provided. “To…

The struggle between certainty and doubt is the ultimate choice and feeling you have on a decision, yourself, or others. The choice is not so finite; it could lay anywhere in between the two. The perspectives of William Lyon Phelps and Bertrand Russell are antithetical to each other, but their views are on differing topics as well. Phelps implies that you must have certainty in yourself in order to complete and defeat any task in the way. On the other hand, Russell mentions that the views or…

For years theodicy has perplexed believers and non-believer of Christ, theodicy is the issue(s) of evil in the world, and this issue is raised against the graceful authority of God. How could a divine Lord who is the regulator of all that is, and will ever be, allow evil to occur? There are many parables in the narrative that address this very problem (Prov 3:11-12, Job 19:26, Dan 12:2).Although the bible address this issue, it does not directly give a solution to the aforementioned. It seems…

“Part of the definition of libertarian free will that an action that is free in that sense cannot be caused by anything outside of the agent, not even God can cause a person to freely do what is right” (Tooley). If humans are thought to have free will, then God would have no ability to control their actions. This could result in evil being brought into the world due to negative actions being…

“Free will, without which no one can live rightly, is a good and divine gift.” (Augustine 65). In the book, On the Free Choice of the Will, Augustine argues that humanity’s will, which is given by God, is indeed free. As the book proclaims, free will is something that has the ability to produce righteousness and happiness; it is a gift that produces peace and prosperity. Yet, at the same time, there is the possibility of the will to be fixed on the all too enticing temptations of this world.…