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According to Google, my two Blogger websites set my own personal record for approximately 67, 000 pageviews in September. The Stat Counter statistics were similar. I would personally, very much love to thank you all for the support in making that happen...But, in reality the views are mostly due to my template change to dynamic and resulting Googlebots. Again as per United Kingdom PhD academic standards, citations are primarily in my own words. This is re-presented material in a new form. The PhD is Russell Norman Murray, Theodicy and Practical Theology (2010), The University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter.
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John S. Feinberg, who has written extensively on the concepts of free will and determinism, explains incompatibilism is defined as the idea within free will theodicy or defence that a person is free in regard to an action if he or she is free to either commit, or refrain from committing the action. Feinberg (1994: 64).
There can be no antecedent[1]
conditions or laws that will determine that an action is committed or not
committed. Feinberg (1994: 64).
Feinberg writes that for this view, freedom is
incompatible with contingently sufficient nonsubsequent conditions of an
action. The contingently sufficient nonsubsequent actions would be God making
people in such a way that they only freely did one thing or another. Feinberg (1994: 60).
Feinberg importantly writes that just as the
incompatibilist does not claim that all actions are significantly free, the compatibilist also does not attach
significant freedom to all acts. Feinberg (2001: 637).
I reason, for example, God as primary cause, and
in some cases secondary causes, can force or coerce human actions. But when actions
are committed by a human being without significant freedom, there is not moral responsibility.
For example, a person being forced or coerced to commit crimes under mind
control, may not have significant moral responsibly for thoughts and actions.
Within hard determinism God (theistic model) would be the only
cause of human actions,[2]
while with soft determinism God would be the primary cause of human actions and
persons the secondary cause.[3] Compatibilism, like incompatibilism, holds to
free will but in a limited form. Pojman (1996: 596).
Feinberg, a noted compatibilist, describes
compatibilism as stating certain nonconstraining conditions could strongly
influence actions in conjunction with human free will performing these actions.
Feinberg (2001) explains that with this viewpoint, there will be no contradiction in stating God would create human beings who were significantly free, unconstrained, and yet committed actions that God willed. Feinberg (2001: 637).
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford
Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
FEINBERG, JOHN.S. (1986) Predestination and Free Will, in David
Basinger and Randall Basinger (eds.), Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity
Press.
FEINBERG, JOHN.S. (1994) The Many Faces of Evil, Grand
Rapids, Zondervan Publishing House.
FEINBERG, JOHN.S. (2001) No One Like Him, John S. Feinberg
(gen.ed.), Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books.
POJMAN, LOUIS P. (1996) Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, New
York, Wadsworth Publishing Company.
STACE, W.T. (1952)(1976) Religion and
the Modern Mind, in John R. Burr and Milton Goldinger (eds.), Philosophy and Contemporary Issues,
London, Collier Macmillan Publishers.
[1] In his article entitled ‘Conditional’
Simon Blackburn writes that an antecedent exists if p causes q.
P is the antecedent or
prior cause of q which is the conditional and the
consequence. Blackburn (1996: 73-74).
[2] Pojman (1996:
596).
