Free will? I dont think so

[Veritas6]

Thus god is not fully sovereign.

How would this follow? God antecedently wills everyone to be saved, but He freely dispenses graces (more or less) to anyone He chooses. He remains omnipotent as He can do whatever He wants. He never necessarily predestines anyone, it is all contingent on whether or not we accept His grace.

This is a difference between antecedently willing something and consequently willing something (will always come about). God only wills our salvation antecedently.

If one rejects His grace and wills a lesser good (i.e. willing lust based from the greater good of true love in relationship), then there is a chance we can be excluded from the Beatific Vision. If we freely reject this lesser good and accept the greater good, we have a chance to enter heaven (being in God’s favor).

(We will lustful passions because we find a participation of God’s goodness within it. This goodness might be a romantic relationship, which would be a greater good when done in obedience to God’s commands of sexuality (marital embrace of a man and woman, procreation, bonding, etc). It is a lesser good when done outside of what God desires; good mixed with evil - imperfect).

 

[o_mlly]

A free will where you could not have made any other choice is largely what I think we have.

I have not read many, if any, history books that tell their stories in the subjunctive mode. History is about facts. So is the future seen as present by an omniscient being in eternity. Talk to your shrink about what you could have done. It does not change what in fact you did do.

 

[o_mlly]

Ok, so then those that are in the theoretical hell must be there because they successfully acted in defiance of god again his wishes.

Yes. God’s sovereignty is only diminished iff He did not gift those in hell a free will. But He did, so the maths work out quite well.

 

[Abrosz]

There is only one definition that makes sense, the libertarian free will. Which says that there must be at least two options to perform and the agent can select either one without coercion.

Whether we have such power or not is unknown, but we act as if we did. Moreover, it is not necessary that the selection would have between two morally significant options. To be able to choose between two flavors of ice cream is sufficient. So, in that case, we have free will.

 

[Hume]

But it’s a fundamental tenet for most Christians that god is fully in control.

If he can be defied, he’s not in control.

If this defiance is part of his plan, then it is as he made it. The saint and the sinner may have needed to make the necessary actions in time to actually fulfill their destiny, but they were absolutely created damned or saved.

Their fates were inevitable.

 

[o_mlly]

But it’s a fundamental tenet for most Christians that god is fully in control.

If he can be defied, he’s not in control.

God is Love. Does love control all that it has dominion over? No. If He wills to relinquish then he has not given up His sovereignty, He is not defied.

 

[whatistrue]

On the serious side:

There are different ways to get the knowledge. But to get the MIT degree you must follow the rules of MIT. To get to Heaven you must follow God’s rules. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but if you want to go, you have to do the work. Just like if you want a degree from MIT you have to do that work.

 

[whatistrue]

That is, given two individuals in heaven, how can we tell the difference between the one who had to go through “purgatory” to get there and the one already created there? Of course related to this is , why can’t we just be created there in the first place. If you are in heaven then all your sins, your struggles on earth, your pain, and suffering to get to heaven would all be wiped clear. It would be as if they never happened since if this wasn’t the case you would retain some residue of them in heaven, even if only in memory, effecting the state you were meant to be in, which is a perfected heavenly one unaffected by such things

I am not sure what the official teaching on this is, but it seems to me to be logical that you would still retain a memory of your past (even a clearer and more detailed memory than is possible for ordinary humans), but that it would have no power over you or any more effect on you than if you read about it in a book or watched a documentary about it. Sort of a “Yes, I did do those things, but I am not that person any more” except that it is absolutely true rather than a rationalization. If we were created directly in Heaven, wouldn’t we be angels rather than humans?

Anyone who does know official Church teaching on this, please correct me if I am wrong here.

 

[whatistrue]

However unless you’re feelings have somehow been lobotomized out of you, making you an emotionless zombie how could the memory of yourself murdering someone, for instance your mother, and then being forgiven not have an effect on you?

By being fully healed of any illness or defect, including mental.

The question remains, if you are not that person but are someone else now, then why not be created that someone else in the first place?

You are not that person in the sense of a person who would commit sin, but you wouldn’t be the same unless you went through what you went through.

I get it if this doesn’t make sense; I don’t really have the words to adequately explain what I mean. Something like you being the best version of you that it is possible to be, but still everything you ever did or experienced goes into that “you”. It’s not really something that we can imagine directly because we are limited in understanding.

 

[Veritas6]

But it’s a fundamental tenet for most Christians that god is fully in control.

What do you mean by being “fully in control”?

You’re not considering that God antecedently wills our salvation, He doesn’t force us to follow Him. It is God’s desire for us to be secondary causes; free agents in His plan. He doesn’t want robots who are forced to love Him.

If this defiance is part of his plan, then it is as he made it. The saint and the sinner may have needed to make the necessary actions in time to actually fulfill their destiny, but they were absolutely created damned or saved.

Their fates were inevitable.

You assume God necessarily wills everything. Please provide argumentation as to why God can’t do as He pleases and desire active agents to freely choose to love Him.

Simply saying God is not in control because He can be defiled is a bald assertion.

God is Love. Does love control all that it has dominion over? No. If He wills to relinquish then he has not given up His sovereignty, He is not defied.

Exactly.

 

[whatistrue]

By removing any remorse you may have had about killing someone while retaining the memory of doing so??

Where did I say anything about removing anything? You were the one who assumed there wouldn’t even be a memory, which I thought would not be the best outcome…

How does adding misery to the process render a perfected state

Where is this misery being added?

Just give me one good reason God couldn’t make me the best possible version of me without having to have me inevitably sin?

Just a surmise, but possibly for the same reason we don’t make high school freshmen CEOs of major corporations. You have to grow and learn before you are ready And learning usually means failing more than once and moving past it.

it should have an explanation for a question as basic as this

I think it actually does, but you seem to me to be interpreting it in such a way as to make it more complicated than it needs to be. This is just an opinion with no real theological weight behind it, so take it for what it is worth.

 

[Veritas6]

A free will where you could not have made any other choice is largely what I think we have.

It is my understanding that Hume believed in compatibilism with determinism (assuming you adhere to Hume’s ideas… Unless you are Hume himself! )?

St. Thomas Aquinas would not accept physical determinism as after he demonstrated the existence of God and how He acts - what entails in the world is act and potency, contingency and necessitation. Why assume every effect necessarily follows from its cause?

It is a necessary fact that gravity will hold you to the earth; gravity is a cause that makes certain effects predictable (it’s physically necessary). However, what you’re going to think while sitting in that chair is not predictable from any other scientific law.

 

[AlNg]

He can actually see you reading this response before I send it.

How do you know that? Is there an experiment which can support that?

 

[AlNg]

A free will where you could not have made any other choice is largely what I think we have.

Can you prove this assertion? What experiment has ever supported this?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

What we cannot do is draw a neat, bright line at any given generation and declare ‘From this point onwards it’s not species X, it’s species Y!’

Nope. Not what I was asking for. Rather, if we can tell one species from another, then we can look at two individuals and say either “species X”, “species Y”, or “an X with some features of Y”. That’s all I’m looking for. Can you agree to that?

Can I agree with that? That changes are incremental over time? Gee, I thought that what what I was trying to explain to you. Anyway, that’s sorted.

Now you need to tell me if you think that rationality is connected in some way to the posession of a soul. If, by definition, you believe someone without a soul does not posess rationality, then we have nothing to discuss. It would be a waste of my time and yours to try and convince you that something has evolved if you believe that by definition it cannot have.

 

[Latin]

It still has not been clarified what “AIDED FREE WILL” means nor how God’s AID to our free will gives rise to a will separate from Gods in its freedom.

AIDED FREE WILL MEANS AS FOLLOWS

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott;

For every salutary act internal supernatural grace of God (gratia elevans) is absolutely necessary, (De fide dogma).

There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will, (De fide dogma).
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CCC 308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes:
"For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it.

CCC 307 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free, causes in order to complete the work of creation, … Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains.

“His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.
God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.”
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De gratia et libero arbitrio 16, 32: “It is certain that we will when we will; but He brings it about that we will good … It is certain that we act when we act, but He brings it about that we act, providing most effective powers to the will.”
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With God’s gift of our Aided free wills, we all freely perform every act what God wills and causes us to perform.
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Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
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Aquinas said, “ God changes the will without forcing it. But he can change the will from the fact that he himself operates in the will as he does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9. 31. ST I-II:112:3. 32. Gaudium et Spes 22; "being …
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IT IS CLEAR
God himself operates in our wills, every our act INFALLIBLY caused by God without forcing it, if God causation would stop, every our act would stop, without God’s causation we could do NOTHING.
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St. Thomas teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.
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We are NOT SEPARATE from God, we are ONE WITH GOD, GOD IS THE VINE, WE ARE THE BRANCHES, God is working in and with us.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;
“God is the author of all causes and effects. God’s omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.”

God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.
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God bless

 

[Ignatius]

If I am in a helicopter and looking down on a one lane road with two cars wildly speeding towards each other and I can see that they will crash, does that mean that they do not each have free will because they choose to keep the gas pedal floored?

 

[Latin]

We all have God’s gift of aided free will and God himself operates in our will, for this reason, aided free will is far better than libertarian free will would be.

God is the script writer of our life, whatever written in our script will be done.

So, we don’t have to worry, with God’s aid do our best and trust God with our script.

I have zero worry of hell, I do my best or at least I try, I have 100 % trust in God with my script and with everything in my life.

God bless

 

[o_mlly]

… love controls that which it has dominion over.

One may capitalize Love to identify the nature of God, i.e. Deus Caritas Est.

 

[Hume]

Hume:

But it’s a fundamental tenet for most Christians that god is fully in control.

If he can be defied, he’s not in control.

God is Love. Does love control all that it has dominion over? No. If He wills to relinquish then he has not given up His sovereignty, He is not defied.

Whether god is love or god is hate, we’re talking about sovereignty. He either has it - which is complete, unlimited control - or he does not.

Pick your poison.

You’re not considering that God antecedently wills our salvation, He doesn’t force us to follow Him.

You’re not considering that god created the universe with knowledge of everything that would occur in it. Unless you’re willing to make the argument that he could not have made it any different (ergo attacking his sovereignty), then the universe is as god made.

You assume God necessarily wills everything. Please provide argumentation as to why God can’t do as He pleases and desire active agents to freely choose to love Him.

Simply saying God is not in control because He can be defiled is a bald assertion.

Like literally all divine command theory?

See above.