Talk:Free will in antiquity

Blatant violations: deleting highly reputable secondary source scholarship

Wiki standards do not permit the deletion of reputable, cited, and peer-reviewed scholarship in the way that user Telikalive has been doing to this page. Highly credentialed Oxford Professors have published that free will is not to be found in the New Testament, but was introduced through the Greek philosophers to the early church fathers.

To wit,

Michael Frede, who was Chair of the History of Philosophy department at Oxford University, the absolute most respected scholar on the topic of this Wiki page, and who had no religious axe to grind, soberly indicated that "freedom and free will cannot be found in either the Septuagint or the New Testament and must have come to the Christians mainly from Stoicism." https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2011/2011.10.24/

Another Oxford world-renowned Professor concurred. “The term ‘free will’ is not biblical, but derives from Stoicism. It was introduced into Western Christianity by the second-century theologian Tertullian.” (Alister McGrath, Christian Theology, 351.)

The world's strongest living scholar on the topic is Oxford Professor, Susanne Bobzien. Bobzien has made it clear in her writings that indeterminist free will wasn't a part of Christianity until introduced by Alexander of Aphrodisias to Origen @200AD. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236799966_A_Free_Will_Origins_of_the_Notion_in_Ancient_Thought_review

Susanne Bobzien's book on the topic leaves no question that the Christian church fathers developed their conceptions of free will from the Greeks: Stoics and Platonists. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Determinism_Freedom_and_Moral_Responsibi/JxUuEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

The fact that wiki editor Telikalive does not approve of Susanne Bobzien is no ground for his deletions of her research. If this continues, it seems appropriate to initiate a dispute and perhaps sanctions against Telikalive.

Though Susanne Bobzien's highly respected scholarship has been included in this page, Telikalive has repeatedly deleted it for no other reason than it interferes with his bias. This is a clear violation of Wiki standards.

Erasing Bobzien's scholarship

On what grounds may an editor simply erase Susanne Bobzien's scholarship showing that Origen drew his view of free will from Alexander of Aphrodisias? Dr. Bobzien is a highly respected Oxford Professor and a leading expert on this topic. The erasure of her research seems to be a clear indication of editor bias.

Reorganisation of page

I attempted a basic clean-up of this page. The entire page read like an essay, which is not surprising since it seems to have been lifted from the Free Will in Antiquity page at www.informationphilosopher.com (apparently though with a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license). The article was full of opinions such as "But Bobzien is wrong to suggest that Epicurus did not see a problem between human freedom and the causal determinism of his fellow atomist Democritus ... this is a straw argument put up by critics of Epicurean philosophy". I've renamed the sub-sections; removed a fair bit of the original research; and moved all the different sub-sections at the bottom of the page describing "Modern Classicists Views" into the relevant upper sections. It might at least read like a coherent encyclopedia article now. Pasicles (talk) 17:25, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Wild, uncited, blanket claim removed

This does not belong here at all without a reference:

The Pythagoreans, Socrates, and Plato attempted to reconcile an element of human freedom with material determinism and causal law, in order to hold man responsible for his actions.

"In order to hold man responsible for his actions." ??

Find at least one quote in any pre-Christian text to support the idea that Pythagoras, Socrates, or Plato wanted to make freedom compatible with causal law, so that man may be held responsible for his actions, before imposing cosmic libertarianism on a serious cultural question.

One of Socrates most famous doctrines is that, 'no one does wrong willingly.' Something to think about. Good luck finding those original references.