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kooldood
Guest
Just wondering because since He is perfect doesn’t that make Him only able to do stuff that are perfectly good? 
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Spencerian
Guest
My two cents based on my catechism.Just wondering because since He is perfect doesn’t that make Him only able to do stuff that are perfectly good?
God exists everywhere, anywhere and in every space and time. That’s omniscience. God exists outside of time and has knowledge of all that occurs, past, present and future.
That said, God’s will is free, but, in the end, it’s already been made up. We don’t pray to God in the hopes He will do or do not something. Rather, we pray to understand His will. We linear-beings have our wills to follow, but in a logical order of time.
Yep, that stuff gets awful close to the Calvinist “pre-destination” arguments, but hopefully that’s one useful assessment. Hopefully others can full you in on more teachings.
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PlipPlop
Guest
One could argue that as God (at least, the Catholic image) defines what is good and what is evil, and can only do good. Therefore, if God does it, He defines it that action as good. It is impossible, then, for God to do evil, since it’s no longer evil if He does it.
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bpbasilphx
Guest
Since God is the standard of good, anything He does is automatically good.
Something that one of the Apologists on these fora has said: There is a widespread misconception that God is simply a bigger, softer, and warm-fuzzier version of us.
This seems to be what you’re laboring under, kooldude.
Something that one of the Apologists on these fora has said: There is a widespread misconception that God is simply a bigger, softer, and warm-fuzzier version of us.
This seems to be what you’re laboring under, kooldude.
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TheLastProfit
Guest
Man was made in the image of God.
Free mind
Free conscience
Free will.
Free mind
Free conscience
Free will.
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tee_eff_em
Guest
As Fr Corapi notes: *Free will is not the freedom to choose good or evil – Free will is the freedom to choose the good. *(cf CCC 1704ff)
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Jerok
Guest
This exactly. We in secular society think it is free to go have sex with strangers, but that actually inhibits our freedom. Freedom is the ability to choose the good.
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tonyrey
Guest
Your conclusion is perfectly correct! There are an infinite number of ways of doing what is perfectly good…Just wondering because since He is perfect doesn’t that make Him only able to do stuff that are perfectly good?
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tonyrey
Guest
This seems to imply that if we choose evil we do not do so freely and are not responsible for our choice! We have the power to choose evil but evil reduces our freedom. We become slaves to sin because evil is like an addictive drug. There is nothing wrong with enjoyment but when it is put before love for others it becomes sinister and destructive.
Our power to choose evil suggests that we have more freedom than God! Yet to choose evil is a form of ignorance. When we love ourselves too much we isolate ourselves. No one wants to live with a selfish person who always puts himself first. Extreme selfishness leads to hell - a state of self-imposed isolation.
God is supremely free because God is supremely unselfish! Does that mean “God does not love Himself”? Yes! God is not one Person. The Blessed Trinity reflects the fact that true freedom consists in living for others as well as ourselves. A one-Person God would be the apotheosis of egoism!
So there is a paradox. When we choose evil we** think **we are free to do what we like - and we are. But we are not free to do what we like - and get away without it. In the long run we are harming ourselves more than others if we become corrupt - like a rotten fruit which is poisonous and inedible. We may be unaware of this but that is no excuse. We are to blame because we know when we harm others. Real freedom does consist in choosing what is good…
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Nan_S
Guest
I’m going to back-door this:
Does man have Free Will?
If you say Yes to that question, you have to agree that God also has Free Will.
The created creature can not possess any characteristic which is absent from its creator.
Does man have Free Will?
If you say Yes to that question, you have to agree that God also has Free Will.
The created creature can not possess any characteristic which is absent from its creator.
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Mike_Dye
Guest
Of course God has free will. Being God He could do whatever He wants but, because He is God He wants only good.
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Bob_Crowley
Guest
I wonder sometimes if God exists ***because ***He is good, or if His goodness is His own choice.Just wondering because since He is perfect doesn’t that make Him only able to do stuff that are perfectly good?
Suppose we had a God who made creatures which He then mistreated and tortured whenever He felt like it, and for no other reason than that He wanted to be cruel to them.
That would be His choice. But He would no longer be good.
But since God doesn’t appear to have made that decision (I don’t know about you, but most of my troubles have been at the hands of fellow human beings, not God), then it appears that He is good. I find most of my life I’m pretty much allowed to do the ordinary things that people do.
As an aside, I sometimes wonder why God wants to watch us - I couldn’t think of anything more boring than watching my day to day life - you know, got up, had breakfast, a shower, got dressed, cleaned my teeth, went to work, pushed a pen, typed on the computer, locked up and drove home. If I had to watch a TV show based on my life, I wouldn’t like to convince prime time advertisers to spend their hard earned cash to pay for it.
But on the other hand, He is also recorded as responsible for an earthquake which killed a lot of Jews in the Exodus; a divided Red Sea which destroyed Pharaoh and his entire army, to say nothing of the mass slaughter of the Egyptian first born (most of whom had nothing to do with Pharaoh’s decision to enslave the Israelites) and the sudden execution of Ananias and Sapphira at Peter’s command.
So His “Goodness” does not mean He’s soft.
Therefore I don’t know if God constantly makes a decision to “be good”, or if He “is good” because He’s God, or if He only “Is” because He’s good.
Trying to equate God’s will to our own is not relevant. By Paul’s assertion, “All men are bound over to disobedience so that God might have mercy on them all.”
We haven’t got a choice about our sinful nature, but we can choose the right. But God hasn’t got a sinful nature to begin with, nor can He be tempted, since there’s nothing anybody can make or give to tempt Him with. With one exception - if He took on human form, then He would level the playing field somewhat. Then He could be tempted.
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kooldood
Guest
We are imperfect, and God is not.
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Nan_S
Guest
Before you can give someone something, you have to either possess it yourself or have the right to possess it. God gave us Free Will. He didn’t have to do that.We are imperfect, and God is not.
IM-perfection and IN-completeness are not independent characteristics, nor are they the opposites of God. They are a lack of God.
If we were complete and perfect ourselves, we would be equal to God. We are not. We are something less.
There is no such thing as hyper-perfection nor hyper-completeness.
Dark is not the opposite of light. Dark is the absence of light. Cold is not the opposite of heat. Cold is the absence of heat. Imperfection is not the opposite of God. Imperfection is the absence of God.
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lobster
Guest
It is man that has free will which is a gift from God.Just wondering because since He is perfect doesn’t that make Him only able to do stuff that are perfectly good?
God’s will is eternal and unchanging. For God to change His will would imply that God can change. God does not do good. He IS good.
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