Does God at times override free will? If so, can we really call that free will?

[hmikell7]

To borrow from one of my favorite tv shows, Doctor Who, I believe that there may be certain fixed points in time that are going to happen regardless of anything anyone says or does. Things that all decisions and actions will eventually lead to; whether as a result of the influence of human nature on the human person or due to something else I cannot say.

For instance, had Mary decided to say “no” to the angel Gabriel and had not accepted the Holy Spirit to come down on her, I believe that Jesus still would have been born, though it would have been to a different person, and quite possibly at a different time (since another person would have needed to be immaculately conceived and then grown to such an age that she would be capable of bearing children).

I also don’t think that the fact that there are certain fixed points creates any conflict with free will. Nor do I believe that the fact that God knows everything that will happen creates any conflict either. The way I look at it, God not only knows everything that will happen, he also knows everything that can happen. He sees every possible timeline and course of events simultaneously. We are free to make whatever choices we want, and that in turn determines which timeline comes to fruition. That is why we all have the chance at salvation, because we are all free to choose the reality in which we achieve it through our decisions. God sees all of these possibilities, and all of these timelines hold certain events in common, no matter what we choose (such as the coming of Christ, Judgement Day, etc.)

 

[Cachonga]

fhansen, this is off topic and would take a lot of space to reply to it all, so I won’t. I will simply say you are clearly expressing an anachronistic view of sin (which I have encountered many times among Catholics). Can you show me any place in Scripture that makes a distinction between original sin and sins committed with knowledge? I’m curious as to when this distinction was first made. I don’t find it in Scripture, and have yet to find it in any of the ECF’s. If the early church made no distinction, then it holds true that we are all under the condemnation of sin and (regardless of age), therefore, God is just in condemning us all to hell.

You say, “The free will of man must be involved …”; this is a statement of faith that is not supported by Scripture, which is why I reject it. We seem to be convinced our position is correct, so it seems pointless to continue this line any further.

hmikell7, it’s not only unwise, but extremely dangerous to build your theology on a work of fiction (whether it’s Dr Who, or the Protevangelium of James). In regard to God’s choice of Mary to be the mother of Jesus, can you please show me where she was ever asked if she wanted that honor? I see where Zacharias (the father of John the Baptist) was struck mute because of his unbelief, but he was never asked if he wanted that honor. Mary, likewise, was simply told she would bear a son (see Luke 1). I don’t see a question to either Zacharias or Mary. I don’t believe for a second that God had a "plan B’ for anything, nor do I believe that God “forces” anyone to do anything they don’t want to do.

 

[fhansen]

fhansen, this is off topic and would take a lot of space to reply to it all, so I won’t. I will simply say you are clearly expressing an anachronistic view of sin (which I have encountered many times among Catholics). Can you show me any place in Scripture that makes a distinction between original sin and sins committed with knowledge? I’m curious as to when this distinction was first made. I don’t find it in Scripture, and have yet to find it in any of the ECF’s. If the early church made no distinction, then it holds true that we are all under the condemnation of sin and (regardless of age), therefore, God is just in condemning us all to hell.

The point is that God would not be just if He’s the cause of our sin, either the original sin that first corrupted humankind, or subsequent sins.

You say, “The free will of man must be involved …”; this is a statement of faith that is not supported by Scripture, which is why I reject it. We seem to be convinced our position is correct, so it seems pointless to continue this line any further…

It’s all throughout Scripture, and denying it is tantamount to burying one’s head in the sand. Man is a moral agent, capable of choosing: good or evil, life or death, heaven or hell, God or no God. The OT commands such, the NT constantly warns and admonishes believers to choose rightly, or continue to. Scripture can be quoted but too numerous and obvious to bother

 

[ArcillaJohn]

I recently watched a debate about predestination (I believe it was white vs sungenis) and I recall Dr sungenis (or whoever the catholic side was, I say sungenis because I’ve been watching a lot of his debates recently) saying that Pharaoh’s heart was already hardened, and that God hardened it even more or allowed it to be hardened so that his will could be accomplished in that situation.

 

[hmikell7]

Mary was never asked whether she wanted to bear the Savior or not, but I find it impossible to believe that had she objected that God would have forced the pregnancy upon her. She could easily have rejected the Holy Spirit, had she wanted to. It’s unconscionable to believe that she would have, knowing what we do about her, but nevertheless she could have objected had she desired to.

But that’s just my opinion

 

[fhansen]

The fact that she humbly submitted to God’s will, that she chose to, is one important reason that we venerate her.

 

[Agathon]

Whether God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in an active way or in a passive way doesn’t change the fact that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Pharaoh was therefore not free to do the right thing.

In the same book it says that Pharoah hardened his heart. Think of it this way: if ice is brought near the sun, it’ll melt; if clay is brought near the sun, it’ll harden. So when God hardens someone’s heart, it’s not that the person has no choice, it’s that his heart is already hardened from the beginning.

 

[Agathon]

Human nature is not wounded. Didn’t God tell Adam that on the day he eats of the fruit he would die? He certainly didn’t die physically, so it must have been a spiritual death. Eph 2:1, 2 says, “And you, when you were dead in your offences, and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief:” (DR). Eph 2:4-5 goes on to say, “But God, (who is rich in mercy,) for his exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, (by whose grace you are saved,)” (DR). Notice, we were “dead in sins”.

If God created us in the hope that if we grope for Him we can find him, then our nature isn’t depraved.

Acts 17
26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[a] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

 

[Mintaka]

The Catholic understanding is this:

God made us good, in the image and likeness of God.

God gave extra graces to Adam and Eve, which would have belonged to all of us if they hadn’t fallen.

When Adam and Eve fell, we lost some of our likeness to God and all the extra graces. All humans were affected by original sin (this is sometimes put differently in the East) and had trouble doing good because of this.

But we were still basically a good thing, and we were still in the image and likeness of God. God still loved us.

Someone who is baptized is made free of original sin (again, this can be put differently in the East), but is still affected by bad desires and habits of mind, as well as the physical effects of the Fall. But again, he’s still basically a good creation with some manmade problems. Christ has begun to change him into part of Himself, which will make him like Christ and a co-heir with Christ. He is now an adopted son of God.

In the end, saved humans will have all their natural goodness, freed of all the bad manmade/sinmade stuff; but they will also be even more graced than Adam and Eve before the Fall.

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The Protestant idea (depending on denomination) is that man started out good, and Adam and Eve didn’t have any special graces beyond that. Humans lost all goodness whatsoever in the Fall, becoming “totally depraved.” Becoming Christian or being baptized just lifts one somewhere below base level, or doesn’t even do that. (Some denominations think that there is no natural good left, and that only God working through people allows them to do anything positive at all.) I’m not clear on how they see humans’ status after the general resurrection.

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The Pelagian view is that actually humans lost nothing in the Fall, and that anybody can live a sinless good life if they just try hard enough.

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Obviously this is all a simplification of complicated theology!

But the point is that Catholics don’t believe in total depravity, for the unbaptized or the baptized. To quote Tolkien’s “Mythopoeia”:

“The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned…”