Free will? I dont think so

[Latin]

@Latin God gave them the capacity to plan,
a tongue and eyes,
ears and a mind for thinking
Sirach 17, 6

Thank you Valencia for your post.
Everything you have written above is true.

But your above statement doesn’t rules out the rest of the teachings of the Catholic Church on the subject.
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We are cannot plan our life without God’s help as described below.

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.
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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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De gratia Christi 25, 26: “For not only has God given us our ability and helps it, but He even works [brings about] willing and acting in us; not that we do not will or that we do not act, but that without His help we neither will anything good nor do it.”
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We should never forget, without God’s aids we can do nothing.

Sometimes we are regret our past decisions, sometimes we are even believe, we made the wrong decision and we are sorry for it.
But God who aided us/ caused us to make that “wrong decision” knows better what is the best for us.
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We all should have the same faith in God then St.Thomas More had.

CCC 313 St.Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: “Nothing can come but that that God wills. And I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best.” 182
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God bless

 

[Latin]

Which leads to question such as why is there Hell if we have no free will, why does God judge us if our actions are pre-determined, and so on.

God judges us because we will have different rewards in heaven.

I’m not sure how God will decides our reward when:

The Father William Most Collection
St. Augustine on Grace and Predestination

I.(1) On human interaction with grace: Every good work, even good will, is the work of God .

Ibid. 6. 15: “If then your merits are God’s gifts, God does not crown your merits as your merits, but as His gifts.”
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Ep. 154, 5. 16: “What then is the merit of man before grace by which merit he should receive grace? Since only grace makes every good merit of ours, and when God crowns our merits, He crowns nothing else but His own gifts.”

I guess we will know the outcome of our judgment in heaven.

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ABOUT HELL

The Church officially may not yet teach God saves every member of the human race.

Yet the whole Church is praying for the salvation of every member of the human race (CCC 1058) and we all should believe what we are praying for.
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Also, many members of the Catholic Church from about the highest level teaching from long time that God will save the entire human race, which is not heresy, the Church would not pray for the fulfilment of a heresy.
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Also Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria Jesuit theologian has been secretary, the second in command, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 2008 until 02/07/2017 and at this date Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Ladaria SJ. to the position of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and he is openly teaching Universal Salvation since many years.
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.
It was founded to defend the church from heresy; today, it is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Catholic doctrines.
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In our modern Roman Catholic Church more and more Catholic theologians and Catholic Priests teaching Universal Salvation.

We all should believe what we are praying for, which is the salvation of the entire human race.

Makes no difference how we cut it, aided free will rules hell out, makes it null and void. – Plain and simple.
In my opinion: Someone doesn’t need much logic to conclude it.
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As Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria Jesuit theologian, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, openly teaching Universal Salvation since many years, I’m as a Catholic free to believe Universal Salvation.
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God bless

 

[valencia]

But we have a choice
God dont want us choosing sin
He help us but dont choose for us

@Latin

 

[Latin]

VALENCIA, THIS IS THE WAY OF OUR PREPARATION FOR HEAVEN AS FOLLOWS.

Catholic Encyclopedia : Evil
“But we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place.”
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CCC 310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it?
With infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world in a state of journeying towards its ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin. – God created the dramas of evil and sin.

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THE REASON GOD CREATED THE DRAMAS OF EVIL AND SIN.

Life without suffering would produce spoiled brats, not joyful saints.

Our struggle and tribulation while journeying towards our ultimate perfection through the dramas of evil and sin is the cost which in-prints the virtue/ nobility into our souls – the cost of our road to nobility and perfection.

In this world man has to learn by experience and contrast, and to develop by the overcoming of obstacles (Lactantius, “De ira Dei” xiii, xv in “PL., VII, 115-24 St. Augustine “De ordine”, I, vii, n. 18 in “P.L.”, XXXII, 986).

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;

“God is the author of all causes and effects, but is not the author of sin, because an action ceases to be sin if God wills it to happen. Still God is the cause of sin.
God’s omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.”

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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.

He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.

All events preordained by God in accordance with His all-embracing purpose.

Evil therefore, ministers to God’s design” (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in P.L.”
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CCC 2022; The divine initiative (supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul) in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man.

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AS WE SEE ABOVE

In His training program God designed every obstacles down to its minutest details, and He also designed His aids for us down to its minutest details, the way He aides us that we will able to overcome every our obstacles.
At the end of our training program in this earth, we will be joyful saints in heaven.
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CCC 324 Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.
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CCC 301 God does not abandon his creatures to themselves.
He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, utter dependence enables them to act and brings them to their final end .
Recognizing this with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence.
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The above teachings of the Catholic Church set me free, I don’t believe hell.
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God bless

 

[o_mlly]

The fact that we don’t realise we don’t have free will is the normal state of affairs.

Restated, removing the double negative:
The fact that we do realise we do have free will is the normal state of affairs.

Excellent!

We are simply not aware of our subconscious working as it does.

And you came to consciously know that your subconscious works this way how?

We can understand what’s happening and discuss it and argue about it and wonder why it works as it does, but we don’t sense it happening.

Oh, I see. It’s not sensible, i.e., it’s nonsense.

And it kinda feels funny writing that out as it’s so obvious a statement, but it needs to be said: ‘We are not conscious of our subconscious’.

If we are not conscious of our subconscious then how do can we consciously know what’s going on down there?

Fred, please come back to reality and give us an argument that we can follow demonstrating that we do not have free will. Feel free to do so at any time.

 

[Freddy]

I wish there was something to which it would be worth responding.

 

[o_mlly]

I wish there was something to which it would be worth responding.

Wish, want, will – all pretty much mean the same thing. You use your free will all the time but deny its existence. The better question is: why do you deny free will?

An answer, possibly the answer, is the desire to avoid responsibility for one’s own choices, to escape from freedom. If God made me do it then how could I have done otherwise.

Since you’ve tried to go psychological on the question, I recommend a book by Erich Fromm (a quasi-atheist): Escape from Freedom. In part, Fromm tries to explain the German peoples ready capitulation and subordination to the evils of a Nazi criminal state. “I was just following orders, how could I do otherwise.”

In the years that have elapsed since [the Holocaust], the fallacy of these arguments has become apparent. We have been compelled to recognize that millions in Germany were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it; that instead of wanting freedom, they sought for ways of escape from it; that other millions were indifferent and did not believe the defense of freedom to be worth fighting and dying for.

 

[o_mlly]

This was not a double negative.

Yes, it was.

Besides, almost all of our bodily functions are “regulated” by the subconscious. If you would have to consciously decide to take a breath, you could “forget” and die, especially when asleep or under general anesthesia. How could newborns make a conscious decision about anything??

Regulated or reflexive bodily responses are not human acts, acts emanating from reason. All human acts are deliberate decisions and are, therefore, conscious acts. Acts that are moved from the passions are by definition not free will acts; the non-human animals do as much.

 

[o_mlly]

Ah, another one who does not understand basic English.

Ah, the usual ad hominem from the unknowing.

You doubted the role of the sub-conscious.

Nope. Moving from the ad hominem to the straw man, I see? Not much else in your post is relevant so it may safely be dismissed.

 

[o_mlly]

Probably need a new thread for that question.

 

[Hume]

Hume:

I just don’t buy the idea that there’s some god that’s supposedly in control of it all yet not responsible for it, somehow.

And you’ve the God-given free will to do exactly that!

It’s just a contradiction, is all.

A god in absolute control means that the creation doesn’t have any control. It’s all the dominion of the god.

 

[Hume]

Moreover, a god that supposedly exists in all points in time simultaneously and presently means that everything in history was created at the moment of creation. The birth of your child, your greatest achievement, the gassing of Anne Frank.

All created in the moment of creation.

 

[nicholasG]

Moreover, a god that supposedly exists in all points in time simultaneously and presently means that everything in history was created at the moment of creation. The birth of your child, your greatest achievement, the gassing of Anne Frank.

Knowledge does not equal existence.
God having knowledge of the future does not mean the future exists. I have knowledge of the past but that doesn’t mean the past exists.

 

[valencia]

God didnt create the evil
God create us for being similar to Him.
@Latin

 

[Hume]

Hume:

Moreover, a god that supposedly exists in all points in time simultaneously and presently means that everything in history was created at the moment of creation. The birth of your child, your greatest achievement, the gassing of Anne Frank.

Knowledge does not equal existence.
God having knowledge of the future does not mean the future exists. I have knowledge of the past but that doesn’t mean the past exists.

He didn’t just know, he was there at the moment of its creation. He created it.

A god that is simultaneously present in all points of time that also created the universe -

Also simultaneously created those points in time.

That means, to that god, genesis 1:1 happened at the exact same time as the murder of Jack the Rippers victims.

God is, after all, simultaneously present at all points in time. This was true from the instant of creation.

 

[EndTimes]

But without an external reason it won’t happen.

OK…

Anything else?

_

 

[EndTimes]

he question is, Where do our thoughts come from?

Some come from our conscience…
including external Guidances from God - and Temptations from Evil.

Others are generated by ourselves… as when, e.g., we opt to ‘think’ about somethings…

 

[EndTimes]

A god in absolute control means that the creation doesn’t have any control

And we know that because of our Free Will - God is not in Absolute Control of our will.

Anything Else?

_

 

[Freddy]

An answer, possibly the answer, is the desire to avoid responsibility for one’s own choices, to escape from freedom. If God made me do it then how could I have done otherwise.

That’s better. Post something worth reading and I’ll think it worth responding.

The question of responsibility is a huge one (for those who hold that free will doesn’t exist). And I will readily admit it’s been a problem for me ever since I started contemplating free will. And it still is to a certain extent. Because we (or at least I) need to decide how we apportion blame. How we determine responsibility. How we deal with retribution.

But I have tried to explain that making a choice (be it guilty or innocent or vanilla or chocolate) isn’t representative of free will. Free will is the ability to make different decisions without there being any change in the circumstances. We obviously make a choice when we choose guilty (or vanilla). My point has been to show that it’s nonsensical to suggest that you would make the same guilty decision based on exactly the same conditions. It there is no reason for a different choice then it becomes arbitrary. But a choice is always made. Which doesn’t indicate free will. A lot of people seem to be confusing the two.

And I think that we should still be held responsible for that choice to a certain extent.

Consider a choice you make that will cause upset to a friend. You know that it will but you ignore that outcome. Given all the conditions at that point, including your internal thought processes and emotions, that’s the choice you would always make if the conditions were exactly the same. That means no free will. But…you experience your friend’s discomfort when you make that choice and you consciously consider it. And you decide that it’s a bad thing that she’s upset. So if exactly the same conditions prevailed again but you then considered your friend’s feelings then you might make a different choice.

The conditions had changed slightly. You personally had considered the outcome and chose to make a different decision whereas you hadn’t the first time. But making the new choice would only exhibit free will if exactly the same conditions prevailed and you made yet another choice. That would be nonsensical.

So if you contemplate the results of making a decision, or even contemplate the future outcomes, then your choices will change (which again doesn’t indicate free will). So you have personal (name removed by moderator)ut in the choices you make. If you don’t care, you make one call. If you do, you make another. But the change in your decision is based on conditions external to you which you decide to consider or not.

In that sense you are responsible.

 

[Hume]

Hume:

A god in absolute control means that the creation doesn’t have any control

And we know that because of our Free Will - God is not in Absolute Control of our will.

Anything Else?

_

Sure. If this god is omniscient, then every action you’re ever going to make is known. It was known from the moment of creation because, as this god created the universe and is omnipresent at all points in time, all your actions were created in the instant of creation as well.

I’m not doubting free-will. I’m only insisting that it’s running on rails. Whatever decision you make, you couldn’t have actually made another.