Does Heaven have Free Will?

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Dolphin said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, wasn’t the Garden of Eden suppose to be Heaven but Adam and Eve sinning ruined that?
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I gotta get running, but quick comment on this.

No, it was not Heaven. It was full of many natural goods and happiness and the union of man’s will with God’s (for a time), but man didn’t have supernatural happiness in Eden. Adam and Eve did not have the beatific vision.
 
Wouldn’t this mean then that being an angel is both a blessing and a curse?

A blessing in that you are always with God.

A curse in that if you chose otherwise, you are never forgiven.
 
You’ve heard of the virtue of hope?
Hope is the expectation of the good (might be a better definition out there).

Your fundamental disposition is that freedom must necessitate bad choices. That tends toward despair (and I’m not saying you are despairing personally, just talking in a theological sense here).

Heaven is the perfection of all things in love. Hope helps lead the way; it expects and waits for that perfection. If you stop insisting that bad things must be chosen for freedom to exist, the door to freedom truly opens and the perfect good becomes possible.
 
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goout said:
Your fundamental disposition is that freedom must necessitate bad choices.
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If this isn’t true, then is possible to find this freedom on earth? And if not why? If it is impossible to find on earth then that means bad choices are attached to it no?
goout said:
If you stop insisting that bad things must be chosen for freedom to exist
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Rather I would say bad things must be an option for freedom to exist.

But perhaps it’s not bad things, just that non-good (neutral) things must be an option. I can chose to pray or chose to sleep. Sleeping isn’t a bad action even though I could be praying.

But why would the temptation to sin magically disappear when you enter Heaven. It must be this “beatific vision” but how is this different than just being with God as Angels and Lucifer were.
 
Dolphin said:
Is there free will in heaven? But since no sin can be in Heaven, then I don’t see how free will is in Heaven.
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To understand eternity, reflect upon the phenomenon of light.

As we know from relativity, light does not experience time. There is no “before” or “after” for light.

We, being within time, perceive concepts of “before” or “after” related to light, but from the perspective of the light itself (or anything moving at the speed of light, for that matter), such concepts do not exist.

And yet, despite there being no “time” for light, light can still change form. It can split into different colors, slowed down in different media, be absorbed and re-emitted.

So now you have insight into the nature of eternity. Despite being in an Eternal Now, with no before or after, change can still take place. One can be in heaven “in eternity” (outside of time), and yet not be in heaven “forever” (within time). So the angels can fall, but also rise.

This is why, when Jacob lay down with his head upon the stone, and beheld a ladder, he saw “the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” (Genesis 28:12)

So yes, there is free will in heaven, but do not abuse it! Existing in eternity does not mean inability to change.
 
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This predated both temporal time AND the beatific vision.

All created beings had a point in time where they were created, except God. God has always been ‘in infinity’. When the angels were created, as their wills are ‘fixed’, they either freely chose heaven or freely chose hell. When we are created, our wills are not ‘fixed’ until we at the point of death choose heaven or hell. But since we didn’t ‘start at’ infinity but had a point of entrance INTO infinity, we had the choice to choose the heavenly infinity or the hellish one.

The point is simply this: At the moment of our ‘final destination’ choice, once we have chosen, we will remain fixed.

In a sense, we will always be, present tense, eternally, ‘freely choosing’ heaven, or freely choosing hell.

We will not be able to, after death (or after creation when it came to the solely ‘soul’ angels) change our freely chosen choice as we are always MAKING that freely chosen choice.
 
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White_Tree said:
As we know from relativity, light does not experience time. There is no “before” or “after” for light.
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The candle is not lit = no light.
The candle is lit = light.
The candle is put out = no light.
 
I think understanding God’s freedom requires a paradigm shift that is like this; God doesn’t do ‘this’ or "that’ because it’s good, it’s good because God did it. God IS good. I think if our will is united to God’s will ours may be that free too
 
Does this mean then:
  1. it sucks be an angel because if you chose wrong you are screwed
  2. angels do not regret their decision to leave Heaven?
 
The only way bad things have to be an OPTION is if in order to exist bad and good must coexist.

Heaven does not have anything ‘bad’ in it. It’s all good.
Does that mean heaven isn’t ‘free’, because there is nothing bad to choose?

Or does it mean that, once upon a TIME, human beings spoiled the good to create evil, and from then on, freely could choose evil, out of pride, and here on earth and in hell kept the evil, the spoiled good, instead of accepting God’s grace and the original nature of everything, which was always good alone?
 
Dolphin said:
The candle is not lit = no light.
The candle is lit = light.
The candle is put out = no light.
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Yes, but do not mistake the flame for the light.

The reason why light, specifically photons, do not experience time is related to the relativistic dilation of time that occurs when objects move at the speed of light. The flame experiences time. The light does not.
Dolphin said:
Can one be kicked out of Heaven?
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I believe the existence of fallen angels answers that question. 🙂
 
You are saying the Garden was good all along and Adam and Eve ruined it by disobeying and introducing sin to the world. But they were tempted first.

Meaning - even in a perfectly good place, temptation still existed and sin was possible.

Why can’t temptation in the same way exist in Heaven as it did for the angels?
 
It means that angels were created by God for the same reason we were: To know HIm, love Him, and serve Him, to do good.

Just as with human beings, SOME of God’s creation did not want to do what GOD wanted, but what they wanted. To be god themselves. They refused to do good and, in doing so, created evil.

God gives every being, angel and human, sufficient grace to do good. A being can freely choose to do good, or reject the grace and do evil.

Being an angel or being a human means to BE what an angel or human should be; those who do so choose heaven. Those who do not choose hell.

Since it is freely chosen and with full knowledge and for eternity, it does not ‘suck’ to be an angel because “they can’t change’; after all once we’re dead we don’t change either. (Because the nature of temporal death results in infinity, which by nature is unchanging). What would ‘suck’ would be what God precisely not DOES do to us; either being forced to do something for eternity that we don’t freely choose, or being ‘regretful’ because regret implies change. Which again, by nature of infinity, does not happen, any more than by its nature gravity suddenly ceases to work, or circles develop 4 sides.
 
NO. They cannot. Honestly people, there is a LIBRARY here on this site. Please look it up. You might not want to listen to a little old lady, but if prominent theologians who know a lot more than you (really they do) comment, maybe you’d at least consider their POV.
 
Doesn’t it seem odd though that souls are being torchered in hell for thousands of years already and for thousands more (infinity either direction) and yet all this pain never causes them to regret their actions and cry and feel pity?
 
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