Even though humans have free will do other things in the universe have it as well?

[sidetrack]

As much as I love having free will,I was wondering how that “intermingles” with things that I suppose don’t have it :ehh:.*I’m assuming that animals don’t b/c (even the ones with developed brains like dolphins and apes) for the most part unless their like trained,instinct always overwrites their minds in term of what they do.Could it be said that the route they take through life is one of predetermination or predestination?.Or is there enough “space” in the span of a simple existence of eating,sleeping and mating to have “*some sort of free will ~ *” in deciding when to do those things despite being bound mainly by instinct?.

Also take into account the changes in enviroment.Glaciers erode mountains,if a place is to dry to survive to support plant life like trees other plants like tall grasses move in and you get plains,when streams widen they can eventually become rivers.To me that seems like predetermination.Predetermination that we as beings with free will have to cope with.

I know it would be absurd to say that not moving things like mountains and plants have free will but what about beings that are more sentient like animals?.Are they not subject to pretermination?.

*I got this idea after thinking about how indesicive my dog is when I open the door and she gets nears the door but can’t seem to decide on whether to continue on out unless I step outside

 

[vlf7973]

I think animals are comparable to robots and instinct is comparable to (really advanced) AI. The animal makes “choices” but those choices are entirely the result of it’s “programming” and its enviornment and a number of other things.
I don’t think this is compatible with predestination considering the universe itself is not predestined.
I don’t think it necessarily has to fall under predetermination though.

 

[Della]

Free will means being able to decide to do good or evil. Animals are not capable of making such decisions, therefore, they are innocent of sin.

As to cats/dogs “deciding” whether or not to go outside–it’s based on previous experience, what they want (by going out or staying in), and what their needs are. None of these mean choosing between good or evil, but only what moves them by wants/experience/instinct at the time. The same applies to dolphins and apes, elephants and sharks. They have no capacity for making moral decisions.

 

[Polycarp1]

We are different from animals in our nature. True we both have bodies and souls, souls being that which animates our bodies, but we are different from other creatures in that we have souls that are also spirits.
For a real good explanation of this read “Theology for Beginners” by Frank Sheed

Creation is the gift of selfhood to that which had no self. This is imaged in the creation of a people which was not a people, and the creation of a self in Christ where before there had been only the incoherence, the nothingness, of sin. On God’s part, it is imaged in the
Incarnation and Passion, where God’s power is exercised in a “self-emptying” (see Phil. 2.7), not in a self assertion (not, at least, as we might understand such).

The inner meaning of creation, of God’s exercise of creative power, is not simply that other things appear, but that God imparts the true gift of selfhood where there had only been one self before, namely, Godself. Whatever else it is, creation is a self-emptying on God’s part, a making things with their own proper autonomy: “For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws, and order” (Gaudium et Spes 36, cited by John Paul II, “Created Things Have a Legitimate Autonomy,” in A Catechesis on the Creed, vol. 1, God, Father and Creator [Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1996], 217]).

This does not mean that they can exist without God. In fact, they are totally dependent on God’s continual gift of self-hood, continuously ceded, continuously offered, but it does mean that it is a true gift, continuously given fully without stinting, the generation in love of myriad other selves who may enjoy themselves precisely as gifts from the Creator, as much as their proper nature permits. The Psalmist, imagines the joy of the sun as it “comes forth like a bridegroom from his chamber”–he or she is picturing the joy of the gift of self-hood, even in inanimate objects. It may be thought that they have their joy vicariously, through human beings, who are in the image of God. CAVADINI

 

[Ad_Orientem]

If by “universe” you mean all creation, angels also have free will. If you mean the material universe only, then only man has free will (unless there is some alien species we don’t know about which is a rational animal, but I don’t think this is likely).

Concerning animals, St. Thomas writes (S.T. I, Q83, a1):

. . . the sheep, seeing the wolf, judges it a thing to be shunned, from a natural and not a free judgment, because it judges, not from reason, but from natural instinct. And the same thing is to be said of any judgment of brute animals. But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct, but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. . . .