Apparently you disagree; correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like your position is that any given choice-like-thing either is or isn't a real choice, with no scope for different degrees of real-choice-ness. I'm not really sure what a not real choice would look like. I've only ever encountered real choices (should I follow God or not?, shall I kiss this nice Christian girl?, etc). I suppose you could say some things that happen are not-real choices (Shall I choose to obey gravity? Erk, yes I have to), but that would be a category mistake.
That seems very odd to me; perhaps the oddness will be clearer if we consider some different sorts of context where choice might be impaired: habit, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hypnosis, starvation. I think if you want to properly compare it then you ought to compare it with a crime where the criminal knows he may be (or perhaps will) be judged for the act. That's the closest analogy I think.
(1) whether it's reasonable for an allegedly supremely good and powerful god to set things up that way Which I think resolves down to the question of whether an eternal conscious torment in hell is a reasonable punishment (assuming it is eternal etc). There are other angles to look at it from - some people interpret things as people making a choice as to whether they want God in their life, and if they choose no then ultimately they get exactly what they want, with absence of God (who is the source of all good things) being the worst thing that there could possibly be (i.e. hell). Personally I don't buy in to that all that much, but I don't want to completely write these things off because of my lack of understanding of them.
(2) whether it's plausible that actually God didn't really have any choice but to set things up that way (there is a certain sort of recursive irony around about here...) I suspect that is unknowable. Or if it is knowable (which I doubt) we're going to have to wait around for a long time for the philosophers to work it out (and even then, who knows, philosophy is quite the fuzzy thing).
(3) whether, given his decision to set things up that way, it would in fact have been better for us not to have the option of making the choices that would land us in eternal damnation Not having the option of making the choices that land us in eternal damnation essentially means that we wouldn't have free will, as it is by free choice we choose to sin (or at least I do). So it doesn't make sense to say that it might be better for me to not have the option of making the choices that would land me in eternal damnation because to do so would mean robbing me of my free will, and without free will I do not think I would be a robhu anymore because free will is a required property of robhuness.
(4) whether, given the decision to set things up that way and our option to make the choice either way, we ought to have been better informed about the consequences of our choices So essentially, are we culpable for our actions if the consequences are not explicitly spelled out?
Imagine that the consequences are never spelled out at all. Imagine that someone (for some reason) is completely unaware that there are police and that there is a system of law. If that person went out and raped someone, would it be a reasonable defence to say that they did not know there would be a consequence on them for their action?
no subject
I'm not really sure what a not real choice would look like. I've only ever encountered real choices (should I follow God or not?, shall I kiss this nice Christian girl?, etc). I suppose you could say some things that happen are not-real choices (Shall I choose to obey gravity? Erk, yes I have to), but that would be a category mistake.
That seems very odd to me; perhaps the oddness will be clearer if we consider some different sorts of context where choice might be impaired: habit, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hypnosis, starvation.
I think if you want to properly compare it then you ought to compare it with a crime where the criminal knows he may be (or perhaps will) be judged for the act. That's the closest analogy I think.
(1) whether it's reasonable for an allegedly supremely good and powerful god to set things up that way
Which I think resolves down to the question of whether an eternal conscious torment in hell is a reasonable punishment (assuming it is eternal etc). There are other angles to look at it from - some people interpret things as people making a choice as to whether they want God in their life, and if they choose no then ultimately they get exactly what they want, with absence of God (who is the source of all good things) being the worst thing that there could possibly be (i.e. hell). Personally I don't buy in to that all that much, but I don't want to completely write these things off because of my lack of understanding of them.
(2) whether it's plausible that actually God didn't really have any choice but to set things up that way (there is a certain sort of recursive irony around about here...)
I suspect that is unknowable. Or if it is knowable (which I doubt) we're going to have to wait around for a long time for the philosophers to work it out (and even then, who knows, philosophy is quite the fuzzy thing).
(3) whether, given his decision to set things up that way, it would in fact have been better for us not to have the option of making the choices that would land us in eternal damnation
Not having the option of making the choices that land us in eternal damnation essentially means that we wouldn't have free will, as it is by free choice we choose to sin (or at least I do). So it doesn't make sense to say that it might be better for me to not have the option of making the choices that would land me in eternal damnation because to do so would mean robbing me of my free will, and without free will I do not think I would be a
(4) whether, given the decision to set things up that way and our option to make the choice either way, we ought to have been better informed about the consequences of our choices
So essentially, are we culpable for our actions if the consequences are not explicitly spelled out?
Imagine that the consequences are never spelled out at all. Imagine that someone (for some reason) is completely unaware that there are police and that there is a system of law. If that person went out and raped someone, would it be a reasonable defence to say that they did not know there would be a consequence on them for their action?