🚀 go-pugleaf

In <27811@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:

>Contrary to the presumption of many posters, there is no necessary
>connection between lack of free and determinism, or free will and lack
>of determinism. It would help if posters who wish to presume one or
>both of these would spend a little time elaborating some decent
>supporting arguments.

Determinism negates free will.  Lack of determinism does not necessarily
entail free will.

In re my first statement, wherein I disagree with Chris Malcolm, I submit
another quotation from G. K. Chesterton:

	Intelligent skeptics...mean that the universe is itself a 
	universal prison; that existence itself is a limitation 
	and a control; and it is not for nothing that they call   
	causation a chain...To them it is like believing in fairy-
	land to believe in such freedom as we enjoy.  It is like
	believing in men with wings to entertain the fancy of men
	with wills.  It is like accepting a fable about a squirrel
	in conversation with a mountain to believe in a man who is
	free to ask or a God who is free to answer.  This is a
	manly and a rational negation for which I for one shall
	always show respect.  But I decline to show respect for 
	those who will first of all clip the wings and chain the
	squirrel, rivet the chain and refuse the freedom, close
	all the doors of the cosmic prison on us with a clang of
	eternal iron, tell us that our emancipation is a dream and
	our dungeon a necessity; and then calmly turn round and
	tell us they have a freer thought and a more liberal
	theology.
  			_The Everlasting Man_, pp. 242-243
			in the Image Books 1955 edition,
			Doubleday & Company, Inc.

I would have put the part after the last semicolon slightly
differently: "and then calmly turn around and tell us that we
still have free will, simply because we are free to do as we
will."

For if that will is foreordained from the beginning of time,
it is not free.