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Spinoza And Free Will

Essay by   •  August 27, 2010  •  1,018 Words (5 Pages)  •  2,218 Views

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There are many great philosophical ideas and questions that are known and of course unknown. One of the questions that really enticed my interest was the question of whether or not we have free will. I myself was once a believer of people having free will and doing what I want was my choice and my choice alone. However, after careful consideration and lectures I have been reversed in how I believe in free will. Is there any free will though? Many people would say yes there is and of course there are some who believe that free will is a fallacy and not to be believed. Whether or not there is free will is yet to be determined but what we have to go on and by is from philosophers and every person who has their two cents to fill in. In this discussion of philosophy there will be points made for and against the establishment of free will and basis for judgement of free will exists or not.

Spinoza, Paul, Augustine, Luther have all grappled with this question of free will for many years. What has been said goes to a religious side. Which has been believed of an omnipotent God who will preordain who would be saved and who would be lost. In the simple but complex question in the book of whether or not you slept in late or not, and has been said that God knew you would. With the explanation of the book in its words go as follows; "This means that you could not have not slept late this morning, because God knew you would sleep in late this morning." Which does bring an interesting part to the ever growing discussion of free will is how could you have slept in on your own free will when in fact it was already known that you were going to sleep in late? The belief that God knows everything and all things big and small does highly contrast with the fact of if we have free will or not. There are many different views on the way free will is looked upon, but there are other cases that can show that human body does not have free will. Is there something that governs our bodies, that controls them in ways where we have no clue that it has happened until seconds to minutes after the act has been done? A simple case to see if are bodies are governed is by taking a look at people with handicaps. All of the quadriplegic and paraplegic people in the world, they do not have the ability to move their arms or their legs whenever they feel like it because of damage to their nerve cords in multiple places in the back and neck region. Spinoza has been a supporter for non free will and that the laws of physics govern material bodies, and what happens to a material body is completely determined by what happened before. This happened because the mental and material are one and the same, what ends up happening in the minds is as inevitable as what happens in the material bodies. To do a perfect quote from the book, "Everything was, is and will be exactly as it must be.

On the other hand of free will the side of whether or not free will does exist there are many who believe that free will not only exists but also thrives as we speak. There are many different examples of why and how free will is there. Many have said

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