[Which made me further wonder - what if Eve had some obsession over apples? Would that undermine the theological basis for free will?]

There are some Calvinists that basically believe that. They believe that God has predestined everything. He wanted Eve to eat the fruit.

Musterion 99, wouldn't that be grounds to expel God from paradise and immortality as well?

@PilgrimOfTruth - 

[Musterion 99, wouldn't that be grounds to expel God from paradise and immortality as well?]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Can you elaborate? Who is going to expel God from Paradise? And if God is eternal, how can he also be mortal?

The strong determinist, which I am whole-heartedly against, will still say the the "will" was determined to go against the other disposition to wash. It's a universal "it's always caused" proposition. It's moronic. Why? Because it fails to address the context of what is being discussed. It is a problem of reductionism. It's an argument I'm going to articulate this summer, hopefully (with some good research, to put it to rest). Lets take a look at the number 7, for instance. In number theory this is an important thing. Seven has primeness, it is odd. These are what are called higher-order properties because 7 itself is meaningless. It is an idea, and the prime-ness it obtains is a property of a property, basically. It is an idea bout an idea or a property of an idea. Frege showed that "two-ness," say, is not real of objects. Using first-order predicate logic he shows you can express "two-ness" as a logical relation. But you can easily denote that "two-ness" with "2" or in a 2nd-order predicate logic, address the logical relation (the property of a concept) very simply "the set has cardinality 2" for instance. But if we reduce 7 to its first-order arithmetic interpretation (one of them), I can say, using the successor function (s), that 7=sssssss0, i.e., 7 is 7 successors from zero, given the domain of the natural numbers. This reduction to first-order logic removes all those 2nd-order properties that are important. You may find creative, and convoluted, ways to represent prime-ness and other number theoretical concepts, but to say "it's not real because it's not obtained in its reduced form" is to nullify the subject. Basically, a strong determinist will say these higher-order concepts don't exist because they can be reduced to causal explanations at a more basic context. This kind of "super realism" results in concepts like "you" and "I" and "will" being as meaningless as "prime" and "odd" become meaningless if you remove all context of numbers. You can have determinism and causal necessity and still refer to "you" having "the freedom to choose X." The problem the determinist has is when someone tries to talk about "you" and "will" and "choice" as independent of these causal orders. That's like saying 7 being prime has nothing to do with numbers! That would clearly be absurd. We can understand the relational properties of these concepts by their reduction (and, in fact, can improve them! reduction need not be asymmetric), and it gives support for the concepts! The fact I can reduce all those "mind" things to the brain gives complete support that when I talk about my mind, I am talking about something real! I'm talking about it as an abstraction (higher order property ranging over numerous objects, events, etc.) of real-world things. The problem is we cannot say the mind is real independent of what constitutes it (like Descartes does). We cannot say it is real in the same sense as objects (because that's to blend the order or context of these properties). They are distinct. The consequence, I fear, is we might end up with an "ontological relativism" (realness or existence applies to any concept dependent on its place in the order of these related properties, and there may never be a "base" since we thought those were atoms, but found sub-atomic particles, but maybe there's even more basic things, etc. I don't want this relativism, but it may also not really be a problem at all, just complicated).

That was my long diatribe on this topic, which my phil of mind and logic professor say I have a very good handle on highly advanced topics, but I wanted to get it out there for consideration.

darkwolfofvoid has a deeply philosophical take on the topic, part of which I have a problem following (and I'm not surprised, either), but the only thing philosophical I can add to this discussion is that DesCartes was theoretically wrong when he wrote "cogito ergo sum", translated as "I think, therefore I am" because he presupposes the "I" (himself, his existence) in his premise (I think) to support his conclusion (I am).  It should rather be "because of thinking, I exist."

@darkwolfofvoid - Are you perhaps writing a thesis on this topic?

 

@homer3132 - 

I will do some research and probably submit a paper on this topic for a philosophy essay contest, or an undergrad journal.

In regard to Descartes' Cogito, the "I" is indexical. It really means that anything with the capacity to think, must exist. In other words, if there is a mind (presupposing minds think), then it must exist. Most generally, he demonstrates that if something is thinking, then something must necessarily exist, because of doubt. If something can doubt, it must be thinking, and you cannot say something can doubt, and not think nor exist. They are all intimately tied together. He is not saying that he, Descartes, exists as he thinks he does (a physical person, etc.). It all revolves around the abstraction of some thinking mind (i.e., we may not have other minds, but only one mind and it may not be you).