I think Schelling and Swedenborg had ideas similar to what Geoff is talking about. It’s been so long though I’d need to check.

Jeff — The way the “natural man” idea really connects to our earlier debates about the existence of LFW is that I was in part trying to show that it could appear as if people were causally determined even though they really aren’t. But mostly in this post I wanted to show, as Blake noted, that even if we are naturally pretty good people with good training from good parents we all still need to proactively transcend ourselves and choose to be better than we are or we will not be spiritually progressing as God wants.

Martin Buber had a similar view. We could relate to each other as Its or things which are caused in the order of causes. The object causes me to have a sense of it; but I encounter a Thou. I have a free involvement with another person by choosing to trust and enter into relationship that I don’t have with mere objects — whether that object be a he or a she. (Heidegger also has a good deal to say about the different ways of being and existence).

I believe that is what Geoff is getting at.

What you seem to be saying now has very little to do with the free will debates. Indeed, it seems to have more to do with courage than anything else. The natural man is a passive man you isn’t really risking anything or taking a stand for anything. This is what it is for somebody to go with the flow. Is this about right?

Where I got off if where you call (in the other thread, granted) the natural man the “causally determined” man. That statement wreaks of the free will debates and that is where I was picking things up. You seemed to be saying that track jumping was the only time that counter-causal, LFW was ever exercised for good or evil and that the only time that we could ever jump tracks was by exercising counter-causal LFW. Now am I right is assuming that this is not what you hold to?

Jeff — I am not sure what you are getting at with the whole “nature” sidebar but if you are using it to argue against the existence of LFW this is the wrong thread to take that discussion up again. (I only brought up the highly generalized “nature/nurture” thing to better explain my position in this thread. It looks like Jacob at least better understands what I have been meaning…)

biological nature
social nurture
spiritual nature
spiritual nurture (from God, etc.)
non-social environmental interaction
introspection (causation which is constantly happening between the ears)
random and unexpected accidents (which probably falls under non-social environment, but hey)

There is soooo much more than mere nature/nurture.

Nature plus nurture = the sum total of all causes on your point of view. How could you do anything not dictated by causes prior causes. It is by definition the case in a deterministic world-view that everything we do, we do because of the prior causes.

Further, how could anyone act against a nature? A nature is generally defined by a natural kind. One couldn’t for instance, act in a way inconsistent with being human. So you’re going to have to, once again, define your terms. What do you mean by a “nature”?