> This post makes an assumption that free will implies that an action is not predictable. I don't really think so.
>

Yes, what I was saying is that under *my* concept of free will, this would be the case. In fact, not only unpredictable to humans and other physical beings, but unpredictable to God. Do we agree on the "unpredictable to humans and other physical beings" part, at least?

If one could in theory determine a person's actions by knowing the complete physical state of the universe, all of its laws of interaction and such, then we could rule out even the looser formulation of free will (in which we still conceive of God as foreseeing the ultimate results of all decisions we make).

Note that it wouldn't necessarily go the other way -- there could be other ways besides free will in which things would be, even theoretically, non-predictable to physical agents (such as many implications of QM).

My personal idea of free will requires an even higher level of independence than "unpredictable to humans and other physical beings". Not just must one's action be an action without a definite prior cause in the physical realm, but it must be partially independent of all higher realms, including the foreknowledge of God. I'm almost explicitly defining free will so as to be incompatible with perfect knowledge of past, present, and future.

In my other post, I was trying to solicit other ideas on what free will means to other people (these other ideas have been expressed in this thread since then). I'd hate for the whole debate to spring from differences in the definitions and not the logic of the arguments.