Do we really have free will?

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ianoleary

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I’m an 18 year old born and raised Catholic, and lately life has been a mess. Over the past couple of years I’ve kind of gone though a spiritual rebirth and have been asking a bunch of questions about life. Catholicism seems to have a lot of evidence to support it, but I’m still seeing conflicting evidence. Do we really have free will or am I mistaken about the definition of it? The issue of free will lately has really been bugging me and certainly hasn’t helped my OCD/anxiety/depersonalization that’s been going on. Can someone enlighten me?
 
What do you mean by free will? Do you wonder if we can choose to go against God? Or do you wonder if we can choose to leave the Catholic faith for another church? Please explain.
 
We have an intellect to distinguish right from wrong, and a free will to choose whether to act in a right or wrong manner.
 
Hello ianoleary;

I believe that God created us to live by the greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The freedom to love, also gives us the freedom to do evil.

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by these commandments because they are the greatest response to every encounter in his life. But how could Jesus love the people who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross? We know that he prayed on the cross ‘forgive them Father’

It seems that Jesus forgave in order that he should still live by the greatest commandments, to love all his neighbours as he loves himself. Can the forgiveness of sins hang and depend on the greatest commandments, and the reason we have the ability to choose our path in life?

Blessings,

Eric
 
Hello ianoleary;

believe that God created us to live by the greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The freedom to love, also gives us the freedom to do evil.

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by these commandments because they are the greatest response to every encounter in his life. But how could Jesus love the people who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross? We know that he prayed on the cross ‘forgive them Father’

It seems that Jesus forgave in order that he should still live by the greatest commandments, to love all his neighbours as he loves himself. Can the forgiveness of sins hang and depend on the greatest commandments, and the reason we have the ability to choose our path in life?

Blessings,

Eric
 
ianoleary said:
I’m an 18 year old born and raised Catholic, and lately life has been a mess. Over the past couple of years I’ve kind of gone though a spiritual rebirth and have been asking a bunch of questions about life. Catholicism seems to have a lot of evidence to support it, but I’m still seeing conflicting evidence. Do we really have free will or am I mistaken about the definition of it? The issue of free will lately has really been bugging me and certainly hasn’t helped my OCD/anxiety/depersonalization that’s been going on. Can someone enlighten me?
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“Free will” can neither be supported philosophically, nor neuro-scientifically, so no, we don’t have it.
 
ASimon said:
“Free will” can neither be supported philosophically, nor neuro-scientifically, so no, we don’t have it.
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But we seem to have free will- we experience the process of making decisions. This experience, the apparent making of decisions, is what free will actually is.
 
ianoleary said:
I’m an 18 year old born and raised Catholic, and lately life has been a mess. Over the past couple of years I’ve kind of gone though a spiritual rebirth and have been asking a bunch of questions about life. Catholicism seems to have a lot of evidence to support it, but I’m still seeing conflicting evidence. Do we really have free will or am I mistaken about the definition of it? The issue of free will lately has really been bugging me and certainly hasn’t helped my OCD/anxiety/depersonalization that’s been going on. Can someone enlighten me?
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It seems to me that we have free will. If we do not have free will then there is no such thing as right and wrong, and nobody is responsible for what they do.
 
After you define “free” and “will”, consider this: If we don’t have free will, then we would all be absolutely certain that we don’t - and we would be unable to think that we do have free will. See how that works?
 
ASimon said:
“Free will” can neither be supported philosophically, nor neuro-scientifically, so no, we don’t have it.
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Nonsense. At this particular moment, you and I are both free to embark on any physically possible action we choose.

I could jump up and down and cluck like a chicken. I could run down the street naked.

Now, I don’t want to do those things. I choose not to. But their is no way in which I am constrained from doing them.

You can’t say my preferences constrain me, b/c if somebody offered me a suitcase full of $100 bills for running down the street naked, you can be damn sure I’d change my mind.

God Bless
 
bilop said:
Nonsense. At this particular moment, you and I are both free to embark on any physically possible action we choose.

I could jump up and down and cluck like a chicken. I could run down the street naked.

Now, I don’t want to do those things. I choose not to. But their is no way in which I am constrained from doing them.

You can’t say my preferences constrain me, b/c if somebody offered me a suitcase full of $100 bills for running down the street naked, you can be damn sure I’d change my mind.

God Bless
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I hope you could also choose not to put cash first! 😉
 
Now can persons free will be impeded etc by various things?

Sure.

But such does not remove the reality that free will is a facility of man.
 
Qoeleth said:
But we seem to have free will- we experience the process of making decisions. This experience, the apparent making of decisions, is what free will actually is.
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It isn’t, though. Free will is the authorship of intention to act, not simply the acting itself. Obviously, decisions are made. We appear to choose to do things, but we don’t actually author the intention to choose whatever we seem to choose.
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Rainaldo:
After you define “free” and “will”, consider this: If we don’t have free will, then we would all be absolutely certain that we don’t - and we would be unable to think that we do have free will. See how that works?
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If you had been unknowingly, but explicitly controlled by some independent, intelligent force for every moment of your life, why would this negate the possibility that you could think you had free will? If this intelligent force could control your actions, he would, in turn, control your mind, so why couldn’t he make you think you had free will?
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bilop:
Nonsense. At this particular moment, you and I are both free to embark on any physically possible action we choose.

I could jump up and down and cluck like a chicken. I could run down the street naked.

Now, I don’t want to do those things. I choose not to. But their is no way in which I am constrained from doing them.

You can’t say my preferences constrain me, b/c if somebody offered me a suitcase full of $100 bills for running down the street naked, you can be damn sure I’d change my mind.
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Every “free” choice you appear to make stands at the head of a string of prior causes that delve deep into your own internal causality. You can never fully account for all these prior causes. And if you follow the regress far enough, you eventually hit on a cause that you had no hand in choosing. You may run down the street naked because you want the suitcase full of money. But if I asked you why wanted the suitcase full of money, the only truly coherent reply is that because money has a value (a fact that you had no hand in choosing). But if you wanted to take it further, can you account for why you value something that our society also values?
 
ASimon said:
If you had been unknowingly, but explicitly controlled by some independent, intelligent force for every moment of your life, why would this negate the possibility that you could think you had free will? If this intelligent force could control your actions, he would, in turn, control your mind, so why couldn’t he make you think you had free will?
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If you didn’t have free will, you wouldn’t know it anyway.
 
Rainaldo said:
If you didn’t have free will, you wouldn’t know it anyway.
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Again, why not? If an independent intelligence were controlling your thoughts and actions, why couldn’t they let you know whatever they wanted you to know? It works in both directions. This intelligence could lead you on believing that you were the one in control, or they could forgo that bit and control everything else.
 
Yes. If not we would only be like a pack of wolves and other animals. No culture, no society. We make decisions every second of our lives, whether good or evil. We don’t act on instinct alone.
 
I’m still not seeing exactly how we have it. I want to, though. And that brings up another point: we can do what we want, but can we choose what we want? It sure doesn’t feel like it. Any thoughts?
 
ianoleary said:
I’m still not seeing exactly how we have it. I want to, though. And that brings up another point: we can do what we want, but can we choose what we want? It sure doesn’t feel like it. Any thoughts?
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How does being prevented from getting what you want, prevent you from choosing to want it?
Why does free will = freedom? In Catholic teaching they do not.
Free will is the ability to choose right over wrong, or wrong over right.
 
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