> I think what I may be disputing is your contention that God controls the intrinsic nature of souls. It is my understanding from your original post that you're saying it is that God sets these intricate natures of said souls. If I'm not mistaken, one of your original questions was asking exactly what this intrinsic nature *was*. I think that nature would be God's influence upon us, which is one that would exist outside the physical laws (which seems to be what you're saying this intrinsic nature is) but not necessarily that it is a controlling influence, as per your assumption. I'm probably misunderstanding what it is that you are meaning by the intrinsic nature of a soul.

We're getting really abstract here. This is really hard to deal with, because we're talking about something that nobody has any practical experience with. You're right, when I used the term "intrinsic nature of souls" I was just making up a phrase to cover what I hoped others would fill in.

What I really meant was, what sort of non-physical or supernatural things allow a soul to make decisions? I'm really confused about this. My problem is that I've talked myself out of belieivng in free will, and it's slightly unsettling. So I'm looking for an appeal to something higher to understand how free will could exist. The problem is, since all actions humans take seem to be attributable to physical causes (and if you go back far enough, none of us had any control over them), I can't see how free will exists.

Now, if we assume that god exists, it initially seems like we have an out. But I don't see how, exactly. What is it about a supernatural aspect that removes us from simply acting based upon pre-existing influences? The first thing I came up with was that god gave each soul some kind of intrinsic nature -- like a personality. Some people are adventurous, some are curious, some collect stamps. Maybe some would be more prone to evil than others.

But this doesn't really solve the problem, either. Because the actions of the souls simply comes down to intrinsic nature + physical properties, neither of which the souls have control over. To have a soul that really has free will, it would need to be able to act without any influences external to that soul's existence. But that seems like an impossibility.

> The non-physical influences upon us would be God and...Satan, evil, sin, etc, I'd imagine. And those who are pushed to commit an evil act are being influenced to make their decision one in favor of evil.

What caused Satan to become evil? What was influencing him? You see, if we follow the chain of events back enough, there must have been something intrinsically evil about him. Anything intrinsic in his creation would have to have been because god created him that way, right? Which means god (who know what would happen when he created Lucifer in such a manner) is ultimately responsible for those actions.

> And I'm going to assume that I didn't do this in a properly logical fashion. At least I'm learning something out of all this. ;-P

Don't worry about it. Logical formality is nice, but obviously I'm not adhering to it either.

> Because God does not exist under the laws of logic that we do.

The laws of logic aren't really laws in the sense physical laws are. Again, "obeying" the laws of logic simply means doing things that aren't contradictory.

> The supernatural are capable of many things that we are not. Defying logic being one of them. Causing a virgin to become pregnant with the Son of God, breaking pretty much any known natural law, being another.

I'm confused here. Causing a virgin to become pregnant is a violation of all sorts of biological and physical principles, but there is nothing logically invalid about it, given an all-powerful god. Can you cite a single example from the Bible in which god behaves in a manner contradictory to the principles of logic?

> God is capable of many things that the human mind cannot, no matter how hard it tries, no matter how much it reasons, grasp.

This does not imply that god can do things that are self-contradictory.

Furthermore, if we assume that god can do things that are self-contradictory, we must admit the possibility that he can do evil. Consider:

God always tells the truth.
God says he will never do evil.
Therefore, god will do evil.

You say that's nonsense, right? The conclusion is refuted by the premises! Tough. If god can violate logic, then all three parts of that argument can be correct at the same time. He's violating the law of non-contradiction. Do you see what problems this poses?

Really, being logically consistent isn't a choice or a limit.

Stephen