Catholics and free will

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Do Catholics believe that if humans fully know God does this negate our free will?
 
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Then why do you believe faith is needed? Why wouldn’t God just fully reveal himself, and then people would choose to follow him or not? That would clear up the which religion is true problem instantly.
 
wkj_123 said:
Then why do you believe faith is needed? Why wouldn’t God just fully reveal himself, and then people would choose to follow him or not? That would clear up the which religion is true problem instantly.
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I thought you were asking if God’s full knowledge of us negated our free will.

The best answer we can give is that God saw fit to make reality in this way to best bring about His plan. That this is more fit to God than the alternatives, and God is the only one with full knowledge of what each alternative can bring, and any alternative we propose is made with incomplete knowledge.
 
Sorry for the confusion. I’m asking if we fully know God does it negate our free will to follow him?
 
God did reveal himself (Jesus) and people still choose not to believe. He continues to reveal himself. People continue to ignore him, block him, and otherwise doubt him.

The problem is not him. The problem is us.
 
I mean reveal himself to everyone personally. I understand what you claim, but that requires faith. I’m talking about an omniscient God making himself known to every person so that faith is not required. Would that negate our free will?
 
I do not believe it would negate free will, but that since we have the reality we have God must have seen this as a more fitting plan. I don’t have time to say more now.
 
No. On a daily basis human beings choose to act in illogical ways even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Again, I point to Jesus. Even as God walked amongst his people many rejected him. So many that they decided to execute him.
 
wkj_123 said:
Do Catholics believe that if humans fully know God does this negate our free will?
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We are created good but not perfected, and with free will. To be culpable for sin requires free will. One may receive the grace of the Holy Spirit but yet not have the Beatific Vision, which after death, in heaven and from which is it impossible to fall since we naturally choose to love the Trinity.

Catechism
302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call “divine providence” the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:
By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, “reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well”. For “all are open and laid bare to his eyes”, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.161
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We need free will to be able to love, as love is an action and not only an emotion as most people tend to believe now days.
 
wkj_123 said:
Do Catholics believe that if humans fully know God does this negate our free will?
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When God is fully known, fully “seen” as it’s put in Scripture and Church teachings, nothing is left for the soul to desire; all of our needs are met to achieve complete and total happiness; we will nothing else because there’s nothing more to desire.

But God wants us to want it first, to develop a hunger and thirst for righteousness. God wants us to will goodness, to desire Him, before we finally see Him, in order for us to deserve that vision.
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God".

In this way we participate in our own justice so to speak. Because the will is not overwhelmed by the immediate vision (aka the Beatific Vision) of God, choices are and must be made first, between good and evil, life and death, God and no God ultimately.
 
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wkj_123 said:
I mean reveal himself to everyone personally. I understand what you claim, but that requires faith. I’m talking about an omniscient God making himself known to every person so that faith is not required. Would that negate our free will?
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You’re not asking about a God, you are asking about a slot machine, or a vending machine. That seems to be your view of God. As some entity that answers all, thus negating any need to think or make an effort to understand.
God has made himself fully known to the beings of this earth. They are called animals. Man has a singular capacity the animal does not have, free will. To obliterate that free will by making Himself “fully known” to each individual would negate that free will and relegate man to the animal kingdom. We would live according to God’s plan, by instinct, not by a reasoned choice to believe. Not in the plan of God.

We would “love” God, not by choice, but by compulsion. And who wants to be loved because one “has to?”
 
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No it doesn’t.

A good example would be the angels. Their knowledge of God would surpass that of humans but yet some of them, out of their own free will, decided to choose Hell over Heaven.
 
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wkj_123 said:
I mean reveal himself to everyone personally. I understand what you claim, but that requires faith. I’m talking about an omniscient God making himself known to every person so that faith is not required. Would that negate our free will?
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God actually did make himself known to the people. When He parted the Red Sea and delivered the Israelites from slavery in Eygpt, they knew Him. But later these same people did not believe in God and made for themselves a golden calf as their god.

Humans are stiff neck. God making Himself known did not necessaily make any difference to their belief. It is their choice whether to believe or not.
 
wkj_123 said:
I mean reveal himself to everyone personally. I understand what you claim, but that requires faith. I’m talking about an omniscient God making himself known to every person so that faith is not required. Would that negate our free will?
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I think I might see where you are coming with this. No it would not negate our free will to follow him. However, in my opinion (this is not official Catholic teaching or dogma, just my opinion), if God made himself known to every person that would put an even greater burden upon us.
Luke 12:48 Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.
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Could you even imagine the consequences if God made himself fully known to us?

Jesus came, He revealed himself to us, He built a Church, etc… and we still screw up. He loves us so much that He has given us much and all He requires is we fulfill our end of the bargain by Loving God and Loving neighbor. I can’t even imagine what would be required if at this very moment Jesus physically revealed himself to me. If He entrusted me with that vision and knowledge of God I can’t even fathom what would be demanded of me from this point until the day that I die.

I have not yet been perfected in this life and would not be prepared to accept such a burden.

Not sure if this would help or not. I was trying to take it from a different angle.

God Bless
 
wkj_123 said:
Do Catholics believe that if humans fully know God does this negate our free will?
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Angels were the first creatures. They have free will. They know God. 1/3 blew THEIR test. Now it’s our turn to be tested. Free will makes us culpable for what we do. Revelation makes God knowable to us. As it turns out, few of us will pass our test
 
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wkj_123 said:
Do Catholics believe that if humans fully know God does this negate our free will?
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No, but if we fully understood God (or, for example, to the degree that the angels do) we would instantaneously either accept Him or reject Him, and there would be no new leafs to turn over that could change our mind and cause us to either repent or to fall from grace, since we already have a complete understanding of God.

We exist in a darkened state of mind in the material world, and with bodies and emotions like animals. In the hereafter the veil will be lifted. Free will exists but it becomes mechanical rather than fluid due to the totality of knowledge upon the soul.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. I just have always found it interesting that God behaves as he would if he didn’t exist, when from a free will standpoint it clearly isn’t necessary for him to do that.
 
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