No…according to Christianity, we are thrust into this world, already stained for a sin we did not commit. We had no choice in our creation, but the creator already knew the outcome of our life. Their can be no free will under such conditions.
Is it possible that you’re making the assumption that the a hypothetical creator will always chose to maintain control?
Perhaps you missunderstood what your professor was saying. The Church has always upheld free will, it has never doubted that. I would ask your professor to clarify his remarks. And if he maintains his position to be what you just said it was then ask for the basis of this conviction, because he would be absolutely wrong.
It seems to me that there can be free will under such conditions, and the only way there couldn’t be is if we had no say in our own actions. It is our own choices that determine the outcome of our life, and those choices are merely foreknown. They’re still our free decisions. I think that resolves the difficulty, what do you think?
You are forgetting the no choice in our creation issue…aren’t you?
Precisely
Historically untrue.The Church does not change her teachings; where your professor got this I have no idea, perhaps some charitable fraternal correction is in order.
The single reason everything in existence goes on existing…because God wills it to be in existence. If God so chose to withdraw from his creation, everything would fall into non-existence.
I don’t disagree that we have no choice in being created. However, the idea that we should have a choice in being created involves a logical contradiction. We cannot be asked whether we want to be created or not because we would not exist yet.
If it was historically untrue, it should be easy to give an example of a teaching the Church has changed. But no example is forthcoming.
Friend, show me evidence. The Church can not change her teachings.
The Church claims infallibility only in faith and morals and under certain restricted guidlines. Perhaps you or your professor or both have in mind something dealing with mere discipline or govenance. These latter are not matters of faith and morals so may be changed by competent authorities. For example, the Vatican has just approved married priests for the Eastern Right Catholics residing in the United States. This is a change from what has existed here in the past, but it is a matter of discipline and not of faith or morals and the change was made by the competent authority.
With knowledge comes responsibility…true for humans…true for gods.
What kind of responsibilities do you think God has?
And how, precisely, do you propose that a being who does not exist might assent to his creation?
If God was constantly correcting our mistakes, that wouldn’t leave much room for Faith would it, and it would deprive him of the Glory he receives by bringing about a greater good. He loves us for our free decision to love and serve him. Without that our existence is pointless.
I happen to believe that God is Omniscient and it was/is because of this Omniscience, among other things, that God came up with a “Plan”, even before creation itself, one could even say that God’s Plan is the “blueprint”, so to speak, of creation.
It is my opinion that your “analogy” is good up to a point but since God is God and we ain’t, than God can come up with a “PLAN” that is all-encompassing and all-inclusive even if some of us think that God is incapable of coming up with this type of “PLAN”.
If our God-given free will was only free up to a point than it would not be free will at all and we would be merely puppets on a string, maybe a longish string but nevertheless a string.
Interesting. A professor teaching “historical” facts and he couldn’t find his source of information? Be gentle with him. Coax him to reveal when was the earliest proof of such change that he could point you to. Otherwise , he would be teaching, someone said something sometime ago. Nameless, dateless, evidence-less. Definitely this won’t be an exam question.