Contra-Causal Free Will?

[Veritas6]

I recently found this quote: “When we make a choice, we do so for a reason. If we freely chose one course of action instead of another, then, the causes of our preference are the determining factors - they dispense with true free will.”

This is somehow trying to disprove free will, but isn’t that what free will is? We always have reasons for our choices, perhaps the author is assuming determinism. With self-determinism, we would be our own causes because of a soul. Am I formulating metaphysical libertarianism right?

God Bless

 

[Kei]

I do not believe it is that our souls are uncaused.

And indeed we weigh the reasons.

I believe the problem with free will is that we often consider it in a materialistic standpoint. It is not a mere materialistic thing.

 

[Aloysium]

What sort of choices are we talking about: the toothpaste we use, the haircut, camo vs tux, bud or ccors, to do our homework, choose a career path, choose whom to marry, seduce the vulnerable, have an abortion? Some are trivial definitions of the person we want to be, others last an eternity. We are all steeped in ignorance, our will not subject to reason since the fall. We bear the consequences of our actions. What can we do but pray for mercy and forgiveness, and do the best we can do to follow Christ. A lot of this is philosophical nonsense, the blind leading the blind through what is ultimately a spiritual minefield.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologiae Ia, 83, 1 ad 3.

Thank you, but could you translate that for me? Do we have the ability to have decided otherwise but chose not to? The authors in the OP articles deny we could’ve chosen otherwise but chose not to.

God Bless

If one could not have chosen otherwise then it was not free will that is being described. What is voluntary is freely chosen. God causes our ability to act with free will.