Fate or Free Will? (Descartes) - a podcast by Dre Carlan
from 2021-02-09T15:00
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Material referenced:
“Meanwhile whoever eventually happens to be the source of our being, and however powerful and deceptive they are, we still experience in ourselves a freedom such that we can always refrain from believing things that are not fully investigated and certain, and thereby we can take care that we are never mistaken.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 6
“That there is freedom in our will and that we are able to assent or not assent, in many cases arbitrarily, is so evident that it should be counted among the first and most common notions that are innate in us. This was most evident above when, attempting to doubt everything, we reached a point at which we imagined some most powerful author of our origin who tried to deceive us in every way. Despite that, we experienced such freedom in ourselves that we were able to refrain from believing whatever was not fully examined and certain. Nor could there be any other things that are more self-evident and clear than what seemed to be beyond doubt at that time.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 39
“Since we already acknowledge God, we perceive that he has such immense power that we believe it is criminal to think that there is anything we could ever do that was not pre-ordained by him. We can easily involve ourselves in great difficulties if we try to reconcile this pre-ordination by God with the freedom of our will and if we attempt to comprehend both at the same time.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 40
“We shall avoid these difficulties if we remember that our mind is finite, and that the power of God—by which he not only knew eternally everything that exists or could exist, but also willed and pre-ordained them—is infinite. Therefore this power is sufficiently accessible to us to enable us to perceive clearly and distinctly that God possesses it; but it cannot be comprehended by us sufficiently to enable us to see how it leaves human actions free and undetermined. We are so conscious of our freedom and indifference that there is nothing that we comprehend more perfectly or evidently, and it would be absurd just because we do not comprehend one thing which, of its very nature, we know should be incomprehensible to us, to doubt something else of which we have a profound understanding and which we experience in ourselves.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 41
“Meanwhile whoever eventually happens to be the source of our being, and however powerful and deceptive they are, we still experience in ourselves a freedom such that we can always refrain from believing things that are not fully investigated and certain, and thereby we can take care that we are never mistaken.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 6
“That there is freedom in our will and that we are able to assent or not assent, in many cases arbitrarily, is so evident that it should be counted among the first and most common notions that are innate in us. This was most evident above when, attempting to doubt everything, we reached a point at which we imagined some most powerful author of our origin who tried to deceive us in every way. Despite that, we experienced such freedom in ourselves that we were able to refrain from believing whatever was not fully examined and certain. Nor could there be any other things that are more self-evident and clear than what seemed to be beyond doubt at that time.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 39
“Since we already acknowledge God, we perceive that he has such immense power that we believe it is criminal to think that there is anything we could ever do that was not pre-ordained by him. We can easily involve ourselves in great difficulties if we try to reconcile this pre-ordination by God with the freedom of our will and if we attempt to comprehend both at the same time.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 40
“We shall avoid these difficulties if we remember that our mind is finite, and that the power of God—by which he not only knew eternally everything that exists or could exist, but also willed and pre-ordained them—is infinite. Therefore this power is sufficiently accessible to us to enable us to perceive clearly and distinctly that God possesses it; but it cannot be comprehended by us sufficiently to enable us to see how it leaves human actions free and undetermined. We are so conscious of our freedom and indifference that there is nothing that we comprehend more perfectly or evidently, and it would be absurd just because we do not comprehend one thing which, of its very nature, we know should be incomprehensible to us, to doubt something else of which we have a profound understanding and which we experience in ourselves.”
-The Principles of Philosophy, Part I, Ch. 41
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