I'm suggesting that the three notions are closely related, or perhaps even identical. Free will is notoriously difficult to give a satisfactory definition of, but freedom seems to be (at least) closely related to lack of constraint, and I think it's clear that constraint comes in degrees, and I think following those ideas through leads fairly inevitably to something like what I'm suggesting. (I expect the logarithms are optional.)
I'm open to being shown other ways to deal with the question, though. How would you go about evaluating how much freedom someone has in a given situation?
The choice is experienced and made by the individual. I could equally have written "how much freedom the agent gains by having that choice to make in those circumstances" or something.
As for ease versus difficulty of choosing God: yes, there are two separate issues that pull opposite ways. If we pretend that God has actually told us about our situation (our situation, that is, as described by believers in eternal torment) then we don't get much of a choice because it's like being threatened at gunpoint only much worse. (Of course sometimes people *do* manage to make a clearly-genuine choice despite such threats, as Rob says he did with hell.) But if we drop that pretence, there's a different problem, which is the one I'm whingeing about in the paragraph you cite.
One might hope that these problems cancel out somehow, but it doesn't seem to me that they do. It's a bit like the old ethical puzzle: A, B and C are travelling through the desert; A (who hates C) puts poison in his water bottle, and then B (who also hates C, but doesn't know what A has done) puts a hole in his water bottle so that it all runs out before he ever gets to drink it; so who killed A? I'm not sure that question has an answer, but C isn't any better off for being killed in two "opposite" ways. And we aren't any better off for being mistreated by God in two "opposite" ways, namely (1) being required to do certain things on pain of eternal torment and (2) not being told about #1.
no subject
I'm open to being shown other ways to deal with the question, though. How would you go about evaluating how much freedom someone has in a given situation?
The choice is experienced and made by the individual. I could equally have written "how much freedom the agent gains by having that choice to make in those circumstances" or something.
As for ease versus difficulty of choosing God: yes, there are two separate issues that pull opposite ways. If we pretend that God has actually told us about our situation (our situation, that is, as described by believers in eternal torment) then we don't get much of a choice because it's like being threatened at gunpoint only much worse. (Of course sometimes people *do* manage to make a clearly-genuine choice despite such threats, as Rob says he did with hell.) But if we drop that pretence, there's a different problem, which is the one I'm whingeing about in the paragraph you cite.
One might hope that these problems cancel out somehow, but it doesn't seem to me that they do. It's a bit like the old ethical puzzle: A, B and C are travelling through the desert; A (who hates C) puts poison in his water bottle, and then B (who also hates C, but doesn't know what A has done) puts a hole in his water bottle so that it all runs out before he ever gets to drink it; so who killed A? I'm not sure that question has an answer, but C isn't any better off for being killed in two "opposite" ways. And we aren't any better off for being mistreated by God in two "opposite" ways, namely (1) being required to do certain things on pain of eternal torment and (2) not being told about #1.