Can we choose our beliefs?

[ThinkingSapien]

I think you can change your beliefs on certain matters, but that depends on a number of other things.

I think at best some one can choose to consider something or choose to listen to and analyze an argument. While the honesty of this would be questionable in some situations one could even choose to come up with an argument that leads to a specific conclusion even though that conclusion may be contrary to the person’s actual position (lawyers do this all the time).

Pardon my mistakes. Sent from my mobile device.

 

[antunesaa]

I’ve heard this argument quite a bit recently. Basically, a lot of people say that we can’t really choose our beliefs. It’s usually supported by the person challenging everybody to believe in absurd thing X for a certain amount of money. You can say you believe it, but as the argument goes, you can’t choose to actually believe something.

Now if this argument goes through, it has some implications on the justice of Hell, because if heresy is a mortal sin like (I think) the Catholic doctrine is, then God sends people to Hell for a belief that the person couldn’t choose to not have.

What is your response to this?

DISCLAIMER: This thread is not about whether free will in general can be coherently defined, so please do not turn this thread into a discussion on said topic.

I would say we can choose our beliefs. Perhaps it’s helpful to think about thoughts instead of beliefs. Can we control the course of our thoughts? I think we can, to a certain degree. We can choose to keep thinking about the last soccer game instead of a task we have to fulfill the next day. We can force ourselves to think about a specific topic, a feature sometimes called concentration. We have no absolute control over our own thoughts, but we have a lot; perhaps some people (mystics, thinkers, etc.) have full control. Beliefs, I would assume, are the same. We have some control over them. In some ways, they’re thoughts. I will never buy into the notion that a sane mind cannot think, believe, or desire to act.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I’ve heard this argument quite a bit recently. Basically, a lot of people say that we can’t really choose our beliefs. It’s usually supported by the person challenging everybody to believe in absurd thing X for a certain amount of money. You can say you believe it, but as the argument goes, you can’t choose to actually believe something.

Now if this argument goes through, it has some implications on the justice of Hell, because if heresy is a mortal sin like (I think) the Catholic doctrine is, then God sends people to Hell for a belief that the person couldn’t choose to not have.

What is your response to this?

DISCLAIMER: This thread is not about whether free will in general can be coherently defined, so please do not turn this thread into a discussion on said topic.

God created us all with the same human nature. He has called all to the Truth and has given all the grace to accept the Truth when they find it or when it is presented to them.
So yes, we can choose our faith, but not without prevenient grace. He gives us the grace to accept what is True. But if we intentionally reject that grace by not choosing the Faith which has been presented, we have endangered our souls and have merited hell, whether or not we are aware of it. God demands honesty of us all, period. .

Linus2nd

 

[powerofk]

I’ve heard this argument quite a bit recently. Basically, a lot of people say that we can’t really choose our beliefs. It’s usually supported by the person challenging everybody to believe in absurd thing X for a certain amount of money. You can say you believe it, but as the argument goes, you can’t choose to actually believe something.

Now if this argument goes through, it has some implications on the justice of Hell, because if heresy is a mortal sin like (I think) the Catholic doctrine is, then God sends people to Hell for a belief that the person couldn’t choose to not have.

What is your response to this?

DISCLAIMER: This thread is not about whether free will in general can be coherently defined, so please do not turn this thread into a discussion on said topic.

Okay - with regard to your idea about heresy - it is only FORMAL heresy that is a mortal sin, not material heresy. Material heresy (which, IIRC, is not sinful in and of itself) is believing something that the Church doesn’t, but not really realizing that what you believe is not in accordance with the Church. Formal heresy requires an obstinate refusal, based in pride, to relinquish a material heresy after being properly instructed. Note that the majority of formal heresies over time (Arianism, Pelagianism, Monophysitism, etc.) were pushed forward by ordained ministers of the Church (either priests or bishops). First of all, these were people that had authority, and they were people that truly understood what the Church taught. Their followers were only material heretics, as they went on good faith that their leaders were teaching them properly, and had no idea that they were being misled.

 

[CarmelJerome]

I’ve heard this argument quite a bit recently. Basically, a lot of people say that we can’t really choose our beliefs. It’s usually supported by the person challenging everybody to believe in absurd thing X for a certain amount of money. You can say you believe it, but as the argument goes, you can’t choose to actually believe something.

Now if this argument goes through, it has some implications on the justice of Hell, because if heresy is a mortal sin like (I think) the Catholic doctrine is, then God sends people to Hell for a belief that the person couldn’t choose to not have.

What is your response to this?

DISCLAIMER: This thread is not about whether free will in general can be coherently defined, so please do not turn this thread into a discussion on said topic.

Offering money to someone to bribe them into believing isn't a matter of choice; it's inducing a person to make a profession of some belief for a material benefit, which is a form of coercion; and coercion doesn't produce actual belief, even though, under conditions of coercion, a person might eventually come to accept something that they initially accepted for bad reasons.

Choice involves motives, and motives have to do with out assessment of real conditions in the world or in ourselves. We do have to deal with alternate versions of what the world is, who we are, who or whether God is. And God judges, not strictly on the profession of a particular belief, but on the substance of the soul professing that belief, as Our Lord tells us – the failure to see Him in the poor, the hungry, the sick, the prisoner and act accordingly proves whether they actually believed Him, or merely professed it.

The worth of beliefs in the matter of God’s judgment has to do with how vigorously the soul pursued the truth – reality – of how they received God’s help in grasping and responding to those around them – and that is always a matter of choice, of a series of choices, of a whole lifetime of choices, which must have a certain truthfulness, consistency, and even humility.

The other kind of ‘choice’ and ‘belief’ are the sorts of shallow and false notions of those terms that our commercial, individualist society uses as if they were substantive ideas of choice or belief.

 

[polytropos]

I’ve heard this argument quite a bit recently. Basically, a lot of people say that we can’t really choose our beliefs. It’s usually supported by the person challenging everybody to believe in absurd thing X for a certain amount of money. You can say you believe it, but as the argument goes, you can’t choose to actually believe something.

Now if this argument goes through, it has some implications on the justice of Hell, because if heresy is a mortal sin like (I think) the Catholic doctrine is, then God sends people to Hell for a belief that the person couldn’t choose to not have.

What is your response to this?

Well, obviously giving a single counterexample in this case shows only that “it is not the case that you can choose all of your beliefs.” That much seems fairly obvious. It of course does not follow that you cannot choose any of your beliefs.

Take confirmation bias, for example. In such a case, one resists evidence contrary to one’s beliefs. I imagine in some cases (though certainly not all), confirmation bias is consciously willed, and that seems to be a case of choosing your beliefs.

Arguably much of our hypothetical investigations in the sciences (and even mathematics) require adopting beliefs (sometimes conditionally). A scientist who has some evidence for a proposition might start believing that it is true. He conducts more research and finds that it is in fact false. Part of his inquiry was guided and marked by the belief that it was true (though he may have understood that belief to be provisional). I suspect similar cases are at play in mathematics (my field); it is difficult to motivate a proof for a proposition without coming to believe it first. Even if you don’t know whether it is true, as you are attempting to prove it, you have adopted it as a conditional belief.

(This is a positive sense in which choosing beliefs is central to the scientific enterprise. However, it seems likely that scientific beliefs are chosen in negative ways as well… Read some of the recent technocrats writing about artificial intelligence or transhumanism, for example.)

I suspect much knowledge acquired through authority and testimony can also be chosen, where observational grounds are not directly accessible but where rational belief is still possible. For instance, someone tells you that a bridge is not safe–though it looks safe to you. But you desperately need to get to the other side. You will weigh the relative benefits of the risk of injury with your need to get to the other side. Your valuation of your safety or the good on the other side, which I’d contend is a matter of choice, will determine your course of action.