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Old 11-30-2004, 10:59 AM   #19 (permalink)
asaris
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John Henry -- Because the notion of free will operative in this viewpoint is this "For any action A and person P, P freely performs A at t if and only if P could have performed not-A at t".

WillyPete -- Well, I'm not saying it's important for God to have Eric buy the iguana, only that it might be. Maybe God wants as many people as possible to own iguanas, since he really likes them. His ways are not our ways. <removes tongue from cheek> The other situations you mention would not be Eric buying the iguana in circumstances C, but rather circumstances D and E, since the changes you mention are pretty clearly relevant to whether or not Eric chooses to buy the iguana.

You also write "What causes God to decide that certain actions fall within his defined set of feasible worlds?" That's not actually a valid question. All actions that a free agent would choose to do in some circumstances are included in the set of feasible worlds, from God knowing whether or not you would steal some candy from a store to whether or not the president would authorize a nuclear attack. Even whether or not you choose to brush your teeth before or after you shave this morning. To put it more technically, "For every free action A, circumstance C, and agent P, God knows whether or not P will perform A in C". There are no unimportant choices to God, even if the importance of some seems minimal to us.
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