Definition of free will

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wjp984

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I got in an argument today in class where I was the only one arguing that free will exists and that we still have it even in the following situation.

It was said that if everythig is predetermined and that someone could predict eactly the decisions we are going to make and therefore nothing we could do could change anything since it was all known before, then we don’t have free will.

I disagree since in a way that is exactly the situation we are in anyways with God. God knows exactly what I am going to do and the choices I will make in my life as well as any one of us. Just because I am not completey free in hiding my actions and that it is known before, does not mean I am not free to make the choices I do. I said it is not like I would be forced into making a decsion, but only that the other person would know the outcome no matter what. I still would have the free will to fulfill the outcome one way or the other. What do you all think? Should they be using a differnt term other than free will for what is effected by always knowing the outcome? Whatever definition he has of free will is different than our defintion of it if the above situation takes it away.
 
Hi wjp,

Free will is the ability to choose. It is not impredictability. If it were predictability, then, when the polls predict that a certain candidate will win, we would be saying that millions of people have no free will.

When a person is facing a choice, he/she retains the ability to choose, even though we are 100% sure that they will make a certain choice.

Verbum
 
Verbum said:
Hi wjp,

Free will is the ability to choose. It is not impredictability. If it were predictability, then, when the polls predict that a certain candidate will win, we would be saying that millions of people have no free will.

When a person is facing a choice, he/she retains the ability to choose, even though we are 100% sure that they will make a certain choice.

Verbum
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I agree but the professor was arguing that if no matter what you choose the outcome is known then you have no free will to choose since you can’t change the outcome.
 
wjp984 said:
I agree but the professor was arguing that if no matter what you choose the outcome is known then you have no free will to choose since you can’t change the outcome.
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Verbum is correct. your professor is talking apples and oranges, but he’s insisting on calling them all apples. Even if there are any number of outcomes that could result from any decision making process, that does not mean the outcome is predetermined and that those who were making the decisions were not exercising free will. He is redefining terms to fit his argument: Don’t fall for it.
 
Hi wjp,

Of course these anti-free-will people see farther than that. If there is no free will, then there is nothing immoral because we can’t help ourselves.

Verbum
 
The anti-free will people need to re-read Genesis!

In fact, the anti-free will people need to re-read the first chapters of the Baltimore Catechism!

wjp984 and Verbum are correct. Here’s my (name removed by moderator)ut:

The very REASON we are like God is because of our Free Will, our memory and our intellect. Our Free Will makes us like God!

The very REASON God gave us Free Will is because he wants us to CHOOSE to love Him, otherwise he’d have sons and daughters that were nothing more than slaves. He did the same with the Angels. Both Man and Angels were provided with a test of Free Will. That’s why we have Sin and Devils and why we have Saints and Angels. Darkness and Light. It’s all because of FREE WILL.

Even Jesus Christ has a Free Human Will. He also has a Divine Will. Both Wills are United in what’s called the Hypostatic Union. The REASON Jesus was given a Human Will in the Incarnation is because GOD wanted His only Begotten Son who was made man to CHOOSE to sacrifice Himself on the altar of the cross for the sins of all mankind. Jesus made this choice in Gethsemane.

If they want to SEE a good portrayal of this decision, have them watch The Passion of the Christ. I often watch this to remind myself of exactly what He did for us. This was no light decision. It was so tough for Our Lord, in fact, that it caused Him to sweat blood! It was such a tough decision that it forced God made Man onto His knees, praying for this cup to pass from Him. But in the end, Christ’s HUMAN FREE WILL consented to the Will of the Father. Christ’s Human Free will said, “Thy Will be done!”.

Just as Abraham freely CHOSE to offer up his only son, Isaac, to God as a sacrificial victim, (though God stopped him), God the Father in return CHOSE to offer up His only Begotten Son as a sacrifice to redeem Mankind.

God has a Free Will. Man also has a Free Will. This is what makes us like God! It is a very precious thing that should be cherished.

The fact that God knows WHAT we’ll choose past, present and future is simply a product of God’s Attribute of All-seeingness. This attribute, however, has NO bearing on our Free Will to choose. The only reason God knows WHAT we’ll choose is because God is God!

God Bless!
 
wjp984 said:
I got in an argument today in class where I was the only one arguing that free will exists and that we still have it even in the following situation.

It was said that if everythig is predetermined and that someone could predict eactly the decisions we are going to make and therefore nothing we could do could change anything since it was all known before, then we don’t have free will.

I disagree since in a way that is exactly the situation we are in anyways with God. God knows exactly what I am going to do and the choices I will make in my life as well as any one of us. Just because I am not completey free in hiding my actions and that it is known before, does not mean I am not free to make the choices I do. I said it is not like I would be forced into making a decsion, but only that the other person would know the outcome no matter what. I still would have the free will to fulfill the outcome one way or the other. What do you all think? Should they be using a differnt term other than free will for what is effected by always knowing the outcome? Whatever definition he has of free will is different than our defintion of it if the above situation takes it away.
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But you don’t have the freedom to choose differently from how you are going to chose. If predetermination exists, then there is no freedom to do anything other than what you are predetermined to do.
 
WJP,

C.S. Lewis put it very succinctly: “Watching somebody do something is not the same thing as forcing him to do it.” Your professor is quite wrong; we have the ability to choose things freely; the fact that God, sitting outside of time, sees it all happening in His “eternal now” does not alter that.

In fact, the term “predetermined” has implications that are simply false. Certainly our space-time exists in such a way that God can see all of it “whenever” He wants to, but the future (as we see it) is not at all predetermined by the past (as we see it). As another respondent said, your professor is mixing apples and oranges.
  • Liberian
 
The proper definition of free will is:

S is free (and morally responsible for his/her actions if and only if S could have done otherwise in the very same circumstances.

Free will does not equal having or making a choice! A brainwashed person makes choices, but they are not free.

FurmanTM
 
Hello wjp,

The problem is that people do not understand God’s spiritual Omni-Presence to the whole of physical time which He created. God looks at the whole of physical time as a human looks at a three inch piece of yarn.

Jesus prays to the Father asking that if there is anyway to take this cup from him. Jesus tells us that no one takes His life from Him but that He lays it down freely. Jesus tells us that He obeys the Father.

What ever Jesus would have freely chosen on earth, it is that which our, Omni-Present to all physical time, God would have inspired to Old Testement scriptural writers. The Holy Spirit speaks to David from a possition of Omni-Presence at Christ’s death and ressurection, “This day I have begotten you.”.

After His ressurection Jesus asks the Father “do you now enthrown me at your side”. We under the constraints of physical time realize that Christ, enthrowned after His ressurection, is seated at the Father’s right hand in spiritual Omni-Presence from before creation to beyond the end of physical time. Once eternally begotten of God, Jesus also sits in Omni-Presence to the whole of physical time. Eternally Begotten of God Jesus also looks at the whole of physical time as a human looks at a three inch peice of yarn.

I think that understanding Jesus as free willed man and eternally begotten of the Father at His death and ressurection to live in Omni-Presence to the whole of physical time, can help you.

Please visit: Jesus Loves God
NAB ACT 13:32

"We ourselves announce to you** the good news that what God promised** our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, in raising up Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm, 'You are my son; this day I have begotten you.'
NAB PSA 2:4

He who is throned in heaven laughs; the LORD derides them; Then in anger he speaks to them; he terrifies them in his wrath: “I myself have set up my king on Zion, my holy mountain. I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: The LORD said to me, 'You are my son; this day I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for an inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall rule them with an iron rod: you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.’”
NAB JOH 17:4

(Jesus speaks after his death and resurrection.)
“I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side, a glory I had with you before the world began.” NAB REV 1:17

" . . . I am the First and the Last and the One who lives. Once I was dead but now I live forever and ever. . . ." NAB REV 2:8

“The First and the Last who once died but now lives has this to say. . . .”
 
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