Do demons have free will?

[ServantofChristos]

I was watching a few documentaries about exorcisms and I wondered if demons have free will.
Thoughts?

 

[po18guy]

Did once but don’t now. They made an irrevocable decision to rebel against God. No repentance. No chance. No hope. No wonder they are always angry. From that rarely consulted book known as the Catechism:

II. THE FALL OF THE ANGELS

391 Behind the
disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice,
opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.266 Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”.267
The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God:
"The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by
God, but they became evil by their own doing."268

392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.269 This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: "You will be like God."270 The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies”.271

393 It is the irrevocable character
of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that
makes the angels’ sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."272

394
Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls
“a murderer from the beginning”, who would even try to divert Jesus from
the mission received from his Father.273 "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil."274 In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.

395
The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a
creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a
creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign. Although
Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in
Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a
spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man
and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with
strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great
mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know
that in everything God works for good with those who love him."275

 

[Elf01]

Did once but don’t now. They made an irrevocable decision to rebel against God. No repentance. No chance. No hope. No wonder they are always angry. From that rarely consulted book known as the Catechism:

I don’t read that so much as they no longer have free will as they will never use their free will to turn back to God.

 

[MountCarmel]

ServantofChristos - Much as I believe that once a soul attains Heaven and the close presence of the Beatific Vision, like the good Angels who are also there, and there is no urge/motivation to stray - so too in Hell, the souls and the demons, are ‘locked/emersed’ into all of that which is Hellish.

 

[Seagull]

I know we have free will.

Demons - try to influence our free will.

 

[MountCarmel]

‘Free-Will’, is indeed for this earthly realm, in Heaven, as well as Hell, it can be said that ‘minds are made up, one way or the other, and for all eternity’ - it is ‘our choice’ - ‘pride’ is the usual preventative to remorse and contrition. Before the demon Angels fell they cannot have been in Heaven, but in some other spiritual realm, one that allowed Lucifer and the other rebellious Angels to ‘say’ that they “will not serve”. Heaven is the realm of ‘Love and togetherness’ - Hell is the abode of Hate and rebellion.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Lucifer and the fallen angels made their irrevocable choice once for all eternity. They decided that it was better to reign in Hell rather than serve in Heaven. They are losers.