Does free will exist in Heaven?

[ManRay]

I understand the rebuttal to the problem of evil is basically because man has free will - in a nutshell. I can get down with that. Sooooooo, if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will? Annnnnnnd if god has the ability to make such a place exist then we go right back to the question - why does free will really matter anyway? If god is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing? How would we ever have known the difference? God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then god necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect. Hmph!

 

[LetLoveLead]

I understand the rebuttal to the problem of evil is basically because man has free will - in a nutshell. I can get down with that. Sooooooo, if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will? Annnnnnnd if god has the ability to make such a place exist then we go right back to the question - why does free will really matter anyway? If god is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing? How would we ever have known the difference? God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then god necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect. Hmph!

Yes we always and for all eternity will have free will even in heaven. Free will matters because to love something or someone is a choice or it would not be love. We would all be robots if there was no free choice. We all have the free choice to love ourselves, to love God, to love our family ect. Robots don’t love, they just do what they are programmed to do.
We know the difference because God gave us a conscience. By conscience we have the abilty to know that we exist or are existing. We have this awareness so we can have a free will to choose and thus to love or not to love. If we did not have a conscience we would be like a plant or a bug.
God did not make our place here imperfect, we did. By our free will to turn away from Him we choose ourselves. He gives us that ablilty to love ourselves over Him. By doing this, we choose something so small (ourselves) compaired to the infinite, and thus the world we live falls apart because it is limited, and since we choose to go our own way, the earth is abused for mans own purposes outside of the true purpose God intended the earth to be used. It is literally hell on earth to choose something or someone other than God. It may not seem that way yet, but some of the first signs are deppression, sadness, emptyness, bitter anger, sorrow, regret, ect. Once the person is separated from earth and their body, there is nothing left for them to distract them and cover up the pains in their life. All thats left is themselves, without God, alone, forever.
If we choose God, we freely choose to love Him. Its the same way in heaven. People go to heaven because they Love God, and loved Him more than anything else. In heaven we always have the choice to not love God or choose Him, but that would be plan stupidity or ignorance because there is nothing greater or better than God. All good things come from Him.
I hope this helps, if not, I’m sorry.

 

[Ruthie_again]

if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will?

The Angels have free will. Satan and demons are angels who chose to defy God.

If God is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing?

He could have made us without any free will. But then we couldn’t choose to be with Him. And that’s He wants from us; that’s why He made us.

God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then God necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect.

No, He didn’t. Eden was as like Heaven as could be, and Adam and Eve could have been perfectly happy there. But they chose to listen to Satan, and do what God had forbidden them to do. They gave in to temptation, and were exiled from the Garden. From them we have inherited the tendency to sin. Yes, it’s in our genes.

Since in Heaven, :heaven:we will be “perfectly incorporated into Christ” (CCC 1026), we will be unable to sin. That doesn’t mean we will not have free will. We will be immaculate, like Our Lady, unable to choose to sin. Hallelujah!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Yes we always and for all eternity will have free will even in heaven. Free will matters because to love something or someone is a choice or it would not be love. We would all be robots if there was no free choice. We all have the free choice to love ourselves, to love God, to love our family ect. Robots don’t love, they just do what they are programmed to do.
We know the difference because God gave us a conscience. By conscience we have the abilty to know that we exist or are existing. We have this awareness so we can have a free will to choose and thus to love or not to love. If we did not have a conscience we would be like a plant or a bug.
God did not make our place here imperfect, we did. By our free will to turn away from Him we choose ourselves. He gives us that ablilty to love ourselves over Him. By doing this, we choose something so small (ourselves) compaired to the infinite, and thus the world we live falls apart because it is limited, and since we choose to go our own way, the earth is abused for mans own purposes outside of the true purpose God intended the earth to be used. It is literally hell on earth to choose something or someone other than God. It may not seem that way yet, but some of the first signs are deppression, sadness, emptyness, bitter anger, sorrow, regret, ect. Once the person is separated from earth and their body, there is nothing left for them to distract them and cover up the pains in their life. All thats left is themselves, without God, alone, forever.
If we choose God, we freely choose to love Him. Its the same way in heaven. People go to heaven because they Love God, and loved Him more than anything else.

In heaven we always have the choice to not love God or choose Him, but that would be plan stupidity or ignorance because there is nothing greater or better than God. All good things come from Him.

 

[XiWang717]

I understand the rebuttal to the problem of evil is basically because man has free will - in a nutshell. I can get down with that. Sooooooo, if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will? Annnnnnnd if god has the ability to make such a place exist then we go right back to the question - why does free will really matter anyway? If god is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing? How would we ever have known the difference? God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then god necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect. Hmph!

I would think so, yes. Why ever not?

 

[Rudy_Baga]

Since in Heaven, :heaven:we will be “perfectly incorporated into Christ” (CCC 1026), we will be unable to sin. That doesn’t mean we will not have free will. We will be immaculate, like Our Lady, unable to choose to sin. Hallelujah!

That statement seems contradictory. We will have free will, but unable to choose sin? Wouldn’t it be more likely that we will have perfected the use of our will through right application of it and therefore will have spiritually grown beyond the desire to choose sin and the resulting separation from God?

 

[jochoa]

Sooooooo, if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will?

You have many excellent questions, my friend! Regarding this question: Absolutely. Because every person in Heaven is always freely being and spreading the means to freely be perfectly patient, kind, and motivated with all the body, spirit (memory of the person), thoughts, and will equally towards others and the self for the experience of limitless happiness with unbreakable peace for all, including the self.

Annnnnnnd if god has the ability to make such a place exist then we go right back to the question - why does free will really matter anyway?

Because free will is a necessary component to fulfill the experience of heaven.

If god is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing?

One thing the All-Knowing God knows is that: Sure, He could have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing. However, He also knows that, if He did, He would sacrifice the experience of Heaven (the pinnacle of living) for all. Therefore, He wouldn’t make us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing.

How would we ever have known the difference?

Giving us free will is not only for our own good, it is also for the Glory of God. Therefore, it is not just about us knowing the difference, it is also about God knowing the difference.

God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then god necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect. Hmph!

From your given, you are absolutely correct. However, Heaven is more than just a perfectly happy place. Heaven is limitless happiness with unbreakable peace for all, including the self. Given this, God made our time on earth purposefully perfect because it gives us the time to freely become one with the means to fulfill the goal of Heaven.

Thank you for the fun food for thought! I look forward to further discussion!

 

[ManRay]

I really dig these responses. I guess the trouble I have with free will is the same that many ‘real’ philosophers seem to have (which I am not). Take the response regarding Eden. The poster stated that it was as close to heaven as you could get, but Adam, and Eve chose to ruin it through free will. Free will doesn’t make sense to me in that aspect as it most certainly means some kind of predestination. God is all knowing with perfect past, and future knowledge of all things. He already knew that they would screw it up correct? Free will in my opinion would mean that I have the ability to make a decision contrary to another things knowledge, want, or belief. We apparently can’t make a decision that god doesn’t know we are already going to make. I can’t really make sense of that. The quote below seems to address the problem the best, but also adds some serious complexity.

• I could find no Church teaching on the post question and neither St Thomas nor St Augustine seemed to address it. I would just like to comment on what you said in the quote I pulled out. St. Thomas himself seemed conflicted over whether " will " and " free will " were separate powers of the soul. Certainly we will have some form of free will in heaven. For example we will be free on what " goods " in the way of knowledge we want to learn. There will be wonders enough in heaven to last an eternity, so we will be eternally choosing amongst an infinity of " goods. " But I disagree that we well be free to choose not to love God. Not to love God would be a sin. But Beatitude involves essentially an absolute confirmation in Sanctifying Grace and the Beatific Vision. In heaven there will be no " temptations " to any kind of evil. So in that sence we would not be free. So it would be more proper to say that some aspects of our " free will " will be eternally dormant or inactive. *

 

[Contarini]

Actually Augustine did address this question. He would say that the highest freedom is the inability to choose evil: “non posse peccare.” Obviously that modifies the “free will defense,” since presumably God could simply have created people in this “highest” degree of freedom (according to Augustine, even the angels were not created that way–they could sin, and many of them did). It seems that for Augustine the highest freedom (“non posse peccare”) is something that must be attained by a right use of “free choice” (i.e., “libertarian free will”).

The main problem with this view (there are many, but this is the simplest and most obvious) is infants. For Augustine, baptized infants are saved (unbaptized aren’t, which is a whole other problem!). But they haven’t used their wills at all.

Thus, I think we have to posit that for God a “mature freedom”–the inability to sin gained by right use of libertarian freedom–is better than simply creating people with the inability to sin, even though God could have done this. I don’t think, as strict libertarians do (“libertarian” here referring to a philosophical definition of free will and not to a political position!), that this would simply make us “robots.” But it would, perhaps, make us innocent children for all eternity.

The earlier theologian Irenaeus has attracted a lot of attention in recent years, because arguably he does a better job than Augustine of talking about this question of innocence vs. maturity in terms of the problem of evil. (The modern theologian/philosopher John Hick has popularized what he called an “Irenaean theodicy,” though I don’t think Hick gets Irenaeus quite right.)

If you really go with the libertarian approach, I think you have to find some way in which those who die in infancy can be “tested”–unless you’re willing to say that they really don’t experience salvation in the same way adults do. My friend Jerry Walls, a Methodist philosopher who is a staunch defender of free will (and also of Purgatory), is the only person I know who has argued the former–that those who die in infancy do go through some kind of postmortem “probation” in which they have the chance to sin. I don’t agree with that position, but it’s a consistent one on libertarian principles.

Edwin

Edwin

 

[Shlomo]

Evil is not a result of free will, at least not of man’s one. Viruses and parasites are just few examples.

“I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7)

Becoming perfect takes some time and requires certain conditions. So we are here.

 

[centurionguard]

The Angels have free will. Satan and demons are angels who chose to defy God.

He could have made us without any free will. But then we couldn’t choose to be with Him. And that’s He wants from us; that’s why He made us.

No, He didn’t. Eden was as like Heaven as could be, and Adam and Eve could have been perfectly happy there. But they chose to listen to Satan, and do what God had forbidden them to do. They gave in to temptation, and were exiled from the Garden. From them we have inherited the tendency to sin. Yes, it’s in our genes.

Since in Heaven, :heaven:we will be “perfectly incorporated into Christ” (CCC 1026), we will be unable to sin. That doesn’t mean we will not have free will. We will be immaculate, like Our Lady, unable to choose to sin. Hallelujah!

Since in Heaven, :heaven:we will be “perfectly incorporated into Christ” (CCC 1026), we will be unable to sin. That doesn’t mean we will not have free will. We will be immaculate, like Our Lady, unable to choose to sin. Hallelujah

In my certain hope to attain heaven, I don’t think I could ever dare think of attaining the same honor the Holy Trinity bestows on Mary the Immaculate Conception. Not even the angels in heaven would make such a boastful claim. The “best part” of her created identity is hidden within the Holy Trinity.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

These almost look like ingenious and interesting ways of dodging around the question! But nonetheless, I think they make sense, in a way somewhat at odds with modern conceptions…so I’ll have a go. Even if we get to heaven, I maintain that we would still have the free willed ability to decide to sin, but in order to get there (if we do!), we become (or hope to!) selves that will notchoose to do so… and that’s what purgatory is for!

Or, you know, something like that

Although actually, if we are resurrected, we don’t stay in heaven eternally anyway do we? Don’t we end up in a restored paradise?

 

[Pat_Albertson]

I understand the rebuttal to the problem of evil is basically because man has free will - in a nutshell. I can get down with that. Sooooooo, if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will? Annnnnnnd if god has the ability to make such a place exist then we go right back to the question - why does free will really matter anyway? If god is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing? How would we ever have known the difference? God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then god necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect. Hmph!

We just had an article on this in the Catholic Sentinel. Deacon Owen Cummings says no, we don’t have free will after our deaths: Does free will end with our physical death?

He quotes Catechism:
Deacon Owen Cummings:

Q — Does a person’s free will end with death?

A — The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 393 says this: “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.”

For more, please click the link: Does free will end with our physical death?

 

[ManRay]

We just had an article on this in the Catholic Sentinel. Deacon Owen Cummings says no, we don’t have free will after our deaths: Does free will end with our physical death?

He quotes Catechism:

For more, please click the link: Does free will end with our physical death?

Wild!!! Thank you!!

 

[donsnow]

I understand the rebuttal to the problem of evil is basically because man has free will - in a nutshell. I can get down with that. Sooooooo, if there is no evil, or pain, etc…etc…in heaven - do we have free will? Annnnnnnd if god has the ability to make such a place exist then we go right back to the question - why does free will really matter anyway? If god is all powerful, and all knowing - couldn’t he have made us not have any predisposition towards this free will thing? How would we ever have known the difference? God could have made it that way. If heaven is considered a perfectly happy place, then god necessarily made our time on earth purposefully imperfect. Hmph!

Good evening, ManRay,

The only way I can understand the concept of free will is to consider it much like freedom of choice.
I have noticed that most of God’s creatures have the ability to choose. But, I diverge.

Yes, there was, is and always will be freedom of choice in Heaven and in Purgatory. Maybe also in Paradise, but that’s another discussion. Jesus discusses several afterlifes:
I. Heaven
2 Paradise
3 The outer dark
4 Gehenna
5 the lake of fire.

As far as I know, there is no freedom to leave the outer dark, Gehenna nor the lake of fire Consequently, there is no real choice to leave, the soul has to stay there. So, no freedom of choice is a bad thing. God did create places where there’s no real freedom of choice. They just aren’t very nice places, not nice at all.

In His Holy Scripture of Old and New Testaments, God lays it out about the eternal destinations. He lets us know what the consequences of our choices will be, so we may make informed choices.

Now, that’s a loving God. He wants our uncoecered love. He doesn’t want more “biobots” [biological robots] , he has plenty of those in plants and most animals…

God loves you,
Don.

 

[Shlomo]

I understand the rebuttal to the problem of evil is basically because man has free will - in a nutshell.

Absolutely false.

The rebuttal to the problem of evil is because man is imperfect and, to make it worse, has free will.

Free will is not destructive only if it is combined with perfect love and wisdom. When you have this combination, you are fit for Heaven. A person driven by perfect love and wisdom will not sin.