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Essay / Theoretical Challenges of Freedom: The Theological...
So the problem of free will is the idea of how choices can be free, knowing that one's doing so in the future is already determined as true or false in the present. I'll either go to the University of Manitoba in the fall or I won't. If I go to the University of Manitoba in the fall, nothing I do between now and then will stop me from attending. I don't have two equally available options to go or not go, so I'm not really free at all about anything in the future. However, if philosophical reasoning seems to challenge something that you naturally, strongly, and intuitively know to be true, then you are right. The Law of the Excluded Middle can only apply to future ideas with a decision of uncertain truth representing present trends, but modifiable by freely willed actions. So if I eat an apple for lunch every day of my life and we wonder if I will eat another apple tomorrow, then you can probably assume that I will eat another apple tomorrow. However, unless I'm forced against my will to eat that apple every day, there's always a chance I'll eat a banana instead. Routine does not involve