Free-will just doesn't explain it

[Neithan]

The past several days since thte Virginia Tech Massacre have been shocking, disturbing and confusing. While lamenting these senseless deaths, and praying for the souls of the victims (and the perpetrator’s) and for their families, most people are asking *Why? *Why did the killer do this? Why did this happen?

After reading about the 23 year-old murderer, Cho Seung-Hui, and seeing the coverage of the bizarre ‘multimedia manifesto’ that he actually mailed to NBC studios in some eerily calculated, megalomaniacal act of final testimony, it seems clear to me that here was a mind clearly out of touch with reality–in fact psychotically insane. This guy lived in a world of morbid delusion in which he felt somehow compelled to murder; so the first of those two questions–why did he do this–really has no meaningful answer in the real world outside of Cho’s solipsistic paranoia. He did this for reasons that simply do not really exist.

That would lead us even more forcefully to the second question: why did this happen? Or more specifically: why did God let this happen? We usually chalk up this moral evil to free-will, but what if that free-will is the product of an obviously deluded mind? How culpable can that person be if they are insane and do not know the evil of their actions, or are compelled to them by a combination of physical illness in the brain and the psychological pressures resulting therefrom?

The last major campus shooting took place in 1966, when Charles Whitman opened fire from a tower at the University of Texas, killing 15 people. This young man left a suicide note describing an intrusion of “unusual and irrational thoughts,” and even requested an autopsy in this note to determine whether there was anything medically wrong with him. Doctors in fact found a tumor in his brain after he was gunned down by police.

These two sick minds–Cho Seung-Hui and Charles Whitman–have each unleashed a torrent of violent evil, causing massive suffering and death. Does free-will account for this? To what extent did they even have a free-will enough to know what they were doing was morally evil? Cho Seung-Hui appears to have constructed an elaborate paranoid delusion wherein his murdering spree seemed to offer the solution to his problems. Charles Whitman seemed to have suffered from a debilitating brain tumour that caused his mind to act eratically, to the extent that he did not even understand his own actions.

If free-will can’t sufficiently explain the evil that happened at Virginia Tech, the University of Texas and other events like it, then what does? How could God allow individuals to become so unhealthy that the exercise of their will compels them to commit heinous evil on such a horrific scale?

 

[evelynicholson]

Neithan, no one can take away the suffering of the families. This is a sign that evil is so rampant in the world and prompts us to look at the nature of sin. paradise was like a mirror . If you smash a miror and make it crack, a sort of spider’s web happens from the point of the blow. This is the nature of sin. This young man did not have his natural father in his life-somewhere he had left for some reason. He had not father, then his mother the only stable adult in his life takes a lover and pushes him out. I understand such children often feel rage at the person who has moved in and taken their mother’s love, unless that man makes a real effort. From the news reports it appears that Cho was then sexually attacked and molested through his childhood and probably had to keep it secret from his mother, or feared his step father and that the anger and rage grows within him. His ‘girlfriend’ may have been the first person who was really kind to him-may not have even been a real girlfriend,just someone he had ficated on. The original sins of the parents and step parents of the boy damaged his soul beyond repair,wherehe had become insane with unhappiness. We all have ‘dark night of the soul’ but my own son a much loved child by us was molested by another adult and I had to deal with hours and hours of crying, as we cried too-privately.I would give my life to take away that memory from my son, believe me. We were behind it quickly and the man is behind bars my son is happier but not the cheery carefree soul he was, but how much worse for a child like Cho subjected to it for years.His sense of worthlessness, helplessness and anger must have been complete and skewed his whole sense of reality. The results of that sin are plain.

We must pray the prayer of Holy Archangel Michael to strengthen the family unit in the West and not to tolerate paedophilia or other cruelty to Children. These people just want gratification and are completely unconcerned about the face of the victim child or what they become.We attended court and saw adult victims weep. Ihave never been the same since. My husband has not yet, after four years recovered from the shock and was ready to murder the man! You see, sin spirals out of control .

Even the Dunblane murderer her in Scotland was a social reject and had no sense of worth at all, but his rage was fuelled by the internet as he took his revenge for that exclusion after his spell as \am scoutmaster (!!!) ended after allegations. Now in West Virginia there are more innocent victims of evil.I have no doubt similar problems will be found with the Columbine murderer. We need to stop apologising for teaching our children morality, stickability and endurance in life especially in marriage.

God’s ways are not our ways, and as Catholics this is not the only time we have.The souls of the departed are in the hands of God. St Patrick had it right in his confessions: ‘and we deserved it because we had turned awayfrom God’ and perhaps this terrible thing is a punishment for not fighting against evil hard enough, perhaps even in our catechesis about sin to our own children. I don’t think he had free will because he had no choice just a compulsion to do this terrible thing.
I will pray for all of them and their parents. It is such a terrible wound to America again.God bless and save America (from UK)
Nil desperandum
In Paradisum deducant angeli…

 

[ThePenitent]

But it IS free will.

Over the course of Cho’s life he made hundreds of choices relating to his emotional well-being. If his illness was purely chemical, then he made choices about treatment, medication, institutional care, etc. If his illness was induced by childhood trauma then he made choices about reporting the situation to someone, fixing or escaping the situation that induced or perpetuated the trauma. His friends, family, and doctors made choices, etc. Our society has made choices – about 35 years ago we chose to do away with state asylums, to not allow a doctor to commit a patient to in-facility care (a patient has to sign himself in, and generally speaking, he can walk out any time he wants), etc.

If God didn’t stop Adam and Eve from sinning, why should he stop Cho? What about Cain and Abel? Genghis Kahn? Adolf Hitler? How about war in general? Earthquake? Flood? Famine? And yet you stop to ask why didn’t God stop Cho? Why does Cho spark your outrage, in particular? Because he killed 32 people? What about the guy who killed just one person? Doesn’t he concern you, too?

You have to look at the big picture. It is absolutely imperative that we have free will – it is the linchpin to EVERYTHING. Equally important is that we have faith, hope, and love.
Thanks to original sin, human beings are inclined toward evil – even after baptism, our concupiscence still inclines us toward evil. By ourselves, we are capable of NOTHING that is good. Even when we pray, it the Holy Spirit who leads us to pray and who prays within us.

Rather than be upset with God when I see evil, I expect to see evil everywhere because we are all sinners and we are all horribly weak. Of course, I still pray for the situation and for those involved.
But instead, the viewpoint that I try to take is this: I try to allow myself to be surprised when I see goodness – then I thank God for his tender mercies and lovingkindness.
So you see, rather than question God when I see evil, I bless God when I see goodness. I view suffering and pain as normal and natural – I view peace, harmony, and contentment as gifts from God. I guess you could say that it is just a matter of perspective.

God bless.

 

[evelynicholson]

You’r right in everything, just perhaps that there is the term brainwashing. If Children grow up with evil, and such terrible evil in their lives, they become enraged as they are trapped in it. They don’t learn the ways of love at all. Love is only about possession and being in charge and perpetuating the evil. My son had the contrast of knowing the right path and knew others loved him and as the wsocial worker said to us, he told them his home was a place of happiness and delight.That child only had the darkness,and having created a child of evil, he was let loose on the world, and there are many others who use children and adults and for that matter animals and treat themcruelly. We have tobe aware of spiralling sin as well as making our own choices in how we bring up children and the absolute rule of love. My point was his nurture had completely skewed his decision even to make right choices if he even could distinguish them in his rage. .Someone like Robert Mugabe was even brought up by Jesuits and is a Catholic and at some stage at least received some teaching and look at his choices and the immense evil that has descended on that poor country with its starving millions. Greed and passions and other sins have destroyed so many.

You’re right that treatment centres mustbe set up, however toprotect the public and that swiftly and that would be our choice too and th case must be made at the ballot box.