Free will revisited

[Hitetlen]

Many a time posters emphasised that God gives us free will and that is a sign of his love. From that it would follow, that taking away free will would be a sign of God not loving us any more. Posters also said that God does not despise sinners, he loves them as well.

Also that God allows us to make bad decisions, and if later we beg for forgiveness, he would pardon our transgressions. All this sounds good on the surface.

Here comes the problem: we all make our decisions on incomplete information. We are without total knowledge, especially when it comes to God’s very existence. There is no proof for that, merely “hints”, which can be reasonably doubted. This is why believers emphasise faith over proof. Still, well and good.

The proverbial substance is going to hit the fan now:

As soon as we die, and be brought into the presence of God, we shall have irrefutable proof that he exists. At that very moment we would be in the position to make truly informed decision whether we wish to be in his presence or not. But at the same moment God takes our free will away and renders his judgment without allowing us to make our decision based on actual knowledge. This is very strange to say the least. Either he stops loving us at that moment (hence taking our free will away), or he does not want us to have full information to use in our decision making. Neither of these is a palatable solution.

To take our free will away just when are able to make truly informed decision is unjust and cruel.

What is your take on this analysis?

 

[mosher]

Your assertion is not correct in the first place. You assert that there is no definate proof for the existance of God. You also assert that the believer to acomodate for this will assert faith over proof. Both of these premises are false premises causing your line of reasoning to be invalid.

The first premise assumes there is no proof of God. However, that is not true. It is true if you equate proof with empirical knowledge. Yet, proof cannot be equated to empirical knowledge because empiricism cannot in itself prove truth. Rather, proof for God stems from deductive reasoning which proves truth absolutly. In the area of deduction there is a plethora of proof concerning God in the concrete thus making this, your first premise false.

The second premise is false because it assumes that all believes assert faith over proof. Let us assume to don’t mean empirical truth (if so then the error of the first premise is the error of the second premise) and you mean reason. Thus, the assumption is that the believe asserts a primacy of faith over reason. This may be true for the protestant and the uncatechised Catholic but it is contrary to the Catholic faith to hold faith above reason. As a Catholic all things posited for belief must not be contrary to reason and thus logical proof must be forthcoming rendering your second premise false. From this it follows that your problomata is invalid.

 

[Hitetlen]

mosher:

Your assertion is not correct in the first place. You assert that there is no definate proof for the existance of God. You also assert that the believer to acomodate for this will assert faith over proof. Both of these premises are false premises causing your line of reasoning to be invalid.

The first premise assumes there is no proof of God. However, that is not true. It is true if you equate proof with empirical knowledge. Yet, proof cannot be equated to empirical knowledge because empiricism cannot in itself prove truth. Rather, proof for God stems from deductive reasoning which proves truth absolutly. In the area of deduction there is a plethora of proof concerning God in the concrete thus making this, your first premise false.

The second premise is false because it assumes that all believes assert faith over proof. Let us assume to don’t mean empirical truth (if so then the error of the first premise is the error of the second premise) and you mean reason. Thus, the assumption is that the believe asserts a primacy of faith over reason. This may be true for the protestant and the uncatechised Catholic but it is contrary to the Catholic faith to hold faith above reason. As a Catholic all things posited for belief must not be contrary to reason and thus logical proof must be forthcoming rendering your second premise false. From this it follows that your problomata is invalid.

I am a mathematician, so I am quite well versed in deductive systems, and they are not applicable. In a deductive system one bases the deductions on axioms. Axioms are self-evident truths, everything else is conditional. For example in mathematics every proof start with “IF ‘a’ is true, THEN ‘b’ follows”. In deductive systems there are no absolute true statements, only conditional ones.

Therefore, even if God’s existence would be “proven” by deductions, it would be contingent upon the axioms, whatever they are. Since I am not aware of these axioms you speak about, I cannot go any further.

Only empirical proof counts outside these systems. And as you said, there is no empirical proof of God’s existence, so my (and other atheists’) skepticism is well founded.

But be as it may, the fundamental assertion of the OP still stands: once we have empirical proof of God’s existence, our free will is taken away.

 

[mosher]

Hitetlen:

I am a mathematician, so I am quite well versed in deductive systems, and they are not applicable. In a deductive system one bases the deductions on axioms. Axioms are self-evident truths, everything else is conditional. For example in mathematics every proof start with “IF ‘a’ is true, THEN ‘b’ follows”. In deductive systems there are no absolute true statements, only conditional ones.

Therefore, even if God’s existence would be “proven” by deductions, it would be contingent upon the axioms, whatever they are. Since I am not aware of these axioms you speak about, I cannot go any further.

Only empirical proof counts outside these systems. And as you said, there is no empirical proof of God’s existence, so my (and other atheists’) skepticism is well founded.

But be as it may, the fundamental assertion of the OP still stands: once we have empirical proof of God’s existence, our free will is taken away.

I see you are basing deduction soley upon the Cartesian system. Correct, the If, ten, statement is as you say it is. However, that is not what I am speaking of in positing deduction. The discipline of logic has at its center the syllogism which is the mechanism to deduce absolute truth and not conditional truth and the lower empirical forms that do not prove truth at all but only probability. Even if you were to only accept empirical proof then you are forced inot skepticism and not athiesm because the scientific method rests upon probability and just because no proof is forthcomming at this moment does not mean that it is not out there and thus one must say that, “it is possible that there is empirical proof of God out there it is just that I haven’t found it yet.”

There is another issue that we must address later (let’s not forget) but that is the issue of being before God and having empirical proof. I don’t think it works that way - but that is for a later discussion.

 

[Hitetlen]

mosher:

I see you are basing deduction soley upon the Cartesian system. Correct, the If, ten, statement is as you say it is. However, that is not what I am speaking of in positing deduction. The discipline of logic has at its center the syllogism which is the mechanism to deduce absolute truth and not conditional truth and the lower empirical forms that do not prove truth at all but only probability. Even if you were to only accept empirical proof then you are forced inot skepticism and not athiesm because the scientific method rests upon probability and just because no proof is forthcomming at this moment does not mean that it is not out there and thus one must say that, “it is possible that there is empirical proof of God out there it is just that I haven’t found it yet.”

There is another issue that we must address later (let’s not forget) but that is the issue of being before God and having empirical proof. I don’t think it works that way - but that is for a later discussion.

I am not sure what you mean, and want to avoid another mistake of rendering premature judgment .

Formal logic is also unable to find absolute truths. The syllogisms you speak about are also of the form "If ‘a’ is true and ‘b’ is true then ‘c’ is true, or a variant thereof (there are many). We can arrive at formally true statements which are not true in the empirical sense. Formal logic is just a great tool to arrive syntactically true statements, without being concerned whether those statements are also semantically correct.

In the real world only empirical proof counts, and precisely that kind of proofs are missing. The point I am making still holds: why does God take away free will when we shall have empirical proof of his existence?

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Hitetlen:

Many a time posters emphasised that God gives us free will and that is a sign of his love. From that it would follow, that taking away free will would be a sign of God not loving us any more. Posters also said that God does not despise sinners, he loves them as well.

Also that God allows us to make bad decisions, and if later we beg for forgiveness, he would pardon our transgressions. All this sounds good on the surface.

Here comes the problem: we all make our decisions on incomplete information. We are without total knowledge, especially when it comes to God’s very existence. There is no proof for that, merely “hints”, which can be reasonably doubted. This is why believers emphasise faith over proof. Still, well and good.

The proverbial substance is going to hit the fan now:

As soon as we die, and be brought into the presence of God, we shall have irrefutable proof that he exists. At that very moment we would be in the position to make truly informed decision whether we wish to be in his presence or not. But at the same moment God takes our free will away and renders his judgment without allowing us to make our decision based on actual knowledge. This is very strange to say the least. Either he stops loving us at that moment (hence taking our free will away), or he does not want us to have full information to use in our decision making. Neither of these is a palatable solution.

To take our free will away just when are able to make truly informed decision is unjust and cruel.

What is your take on this analysis?

If I understand this correctly your saying we dont have the full truth now so anything we “decide” to do is uninformed and we should not be held accountable if it is “wrong”.

We as Christians have our position founded on faith, we cant prove things like that Jesus rose from the dead, it is taken on faith. To go on from the foundation of faith that we are “uninformed” because we dont know what God knows is a false conclusion because that was never in the plan to begin with. All through the Gospels the “simple” call to just believe in Him who was sent is the heart of the message, are we going to obey this call with the hope of Heaven or do our own thing and wake up before the judge who asked why we didnt obey?

 

[mosher]

Hitetlen:

I am not sure what you mean, and want to avoid another mistake of rendering premature judgment .

Formal logic is also unable to find absolute truths. The syllogisms you speak about are also of the form "If ‘a’ is true and ‘b’ is true then ‘c’ is true, or a variant thereof (there are many). We can arrive at formally true statements which are not true in the empirical sense. Formal logic is just a great tool to arrive syntactically true statements, without being concerned whether those statements are also semantically correct.

In the real world only empirical proof counts, and precisely that kind of proofs are missing. The point I am making still holds: why does God take away free will when we shall have empirical proof of his existence?

This is perhaps the case is modern symbolic logic (which was my first exposure to logic and is what is generally taught these days in most Universities). However, in Aristotilean Logic the syllogism is not rendered as an If in the major premise. Rather it moves from statement to statement to conculsion. What this provides for is the ability to take either observable reality or concieved reality and apply it to the rigor of reason. Now, you are correct when you say that when you come to a valid conclusion you know one of two things. One, you know if the statement is absolutly false or you know that it is valid. Once one arrives at a valid conclusion then the valid conclusion must be applied to the rigors of reality qua reality and then it can be determined if it is true or not. If it is not then it is subject to a reworking of the syllogism in that one or both of the premises may not find their source in reality. Now, what does this mean? It means that if you can come to a valid syllogism that is also true then it is absolutly true. Thus, the principles of reason must be applied to the initial determination of what the premises are. If the premises are apart from reality then no matter the validity of the syllogism it can not be true.

Simply put, the process is a systematic way of affirming a positive statement.

When you say that in the real world only empirical proof counts there is a slight mistake in the statement. In that statement you assume that the real world only comprises of the physical world. However, empirical datum cannot speak about anything beyond accidents so it cannot speak about natures and substance or issues in the spiritual world. The real world is comprised of both the visible and invisable which ironicly is affirmed by Quantum Physics.

 

[mosher]

Catholic Dude:

If I understand this correctly your saying we dont have the full truth now so anything we “decide” to do is uninformed and we should not be held accountable if it is “wrong”.

We as Christians have our position founded on faith, we cant prove things like that Jesus rose from the dead, it is taken on faith. To go on from the foundation of faith that we are “uninformed” because we dont know what God knows is a false conclusion because that was never in the plan to begin with. All through the Gospels the “simple” call to just believe in Him who was sent is the heart of the message, are we going to obey this call with the hope of Heaven or do our own thing and wake up before the judge who asked why we didnt obey?

We can prove them in the sense that we can say that they are not contrary to reason. That is an important point ot follow. True when it comes ot Revelation it is taken as a matter of faith to be true but it can only be confirmed as “true revelation” if it is in accord with reason. This is the purpose of theology - to deductively prove revealed truth. Please take the time to read the encyclical of John Paul II “fides et ratio.”

 

[gardenswithkids]

Hitetlen:

…Here comes the problem: we all make our decisions on incomplete information. We are without total knowledge, especially when it comes to God’s very existence. There is no proof for that, merely “hints”, which can be reasonably doubted. This is why believers emphasise faith over proof. Still, well and good.

True, we make our decisions on incomplete information. In our theology, that is the difference between the fall of man verses the fall of the angels. That may be why Jesus died for was willing to die for fallen men, but not for the fallen angels. The angels had full knowledge of the consequence of their choice. Theologians speculate that the choice placed before the angels was to serve or not serve. Some chose hell rather than serving.

Unlike angels, humans do not have *all *the information when we make our decisions. But we have all the informtion that we need in order to choose heaven. Unlike your Calvanist upbringing, the Catholic Church teaches that our merciful God gives everyone a chance for heaven. But, like the angels who had full knowledge and yet some still chose hell, some humans with all the information that they need still choose hell.

Hitetlen:

To take our free will away just when are able to make truly informed decision is unjust and cruel.

Yes, I suppose it would be cruel to take our free will away at that point. But I don’t believe He does. I believe we’ll have free will in heaven, but our wills won’t have the corrupting influence of attachment to sin, so we can be truly free. There’s a great quote by St. Paul about how he does what he doesn’t want to do, and he doesn’t do what he wants to do. That is the struggle that we humans have by our attachment to sin (concupesence). I wish to serve God, yet I often fail miserably. We believe that human nature was wounded by the fall, but it is redeemable because of what Christ did. Looking to the crucifix, the fruit of Mary’s womb was put back on the tree.

So will free will be taken away in hell? I don’t think so. Those in hell may be angry and miserable, but I don’t think they are sorry for their choice. Maybe they’re just angry and miserable because they found out there is a God and they aren’t Him.

 

[Hitetlen]

mosher:

When you say that in the real world only empirical proof counts there is a slight mistake in the statement. In that statement you assume that the real world only comprises of the physical world. However, empirical datum cannot speak about anything beyond accidents so it cannot speak about natures and substance or issues in the spiritual world. The real world is comprised of both the visible and invisable which ironicly is affirmed by Quantum Physics.

I would not call the micro-world “invisible”. It can be measured with instruments. Quantum Physics is just a mathematical model of this world, quite accurate in its prediction, though woefully inadequate in helping to visualize it. (But of course actually visualizung something, while helpful, is irrelevant to understanding.)

But I certainly exclude the concept of “spritual” world, whatever that means, since that world cannot be accessed either by our senses or by instruments - so it is not relevant to this topic.

Let me ask again: why is our free will taken away once we gain positive, empirical knowledge of God? That is the point of this thread.

 

[Hitetlen]

Catholic Dude:

If I understand this correctly your saying we dont have the full truth now so anything we “decide” to do is uninformed and we should not be held accountable if it is “wrong”.

That would also be a valid concern, but I am asking something different. The question is why can’t we freely change our mind whether we wish to be with God, once we gain actual proof of his existence?

 

[Hitetlen]

gardenswithkids:

True, we make our decisions on incomplete information. In our theology, that is the difference between the fall of man verses the fall of the angels. That may be why Jesus died for was willing to die for fallen men, but not for the fallen angels. The angels had full knowledge of the consequence of their choice. Theologians speculate that the choice placed before the angels was to serve or not serve. Some chose hell rather than serving.

Nobody “chooses” eternal suffering and damnation - knowingly. Not even masochists would do that. And why can’t people who may have “tasted” hell change their minds?

gardenswithkids:

So will free will be taken away in hell? I don’t think so. Those in hell may be angry and miserable, but I don’t think they are sorry for their choice. Maybe they’re just angry and miserable because they found out there is a God and they aren’t Him.

I am glad you did not insinuate that you “know” how people would think in hell. And if you don’t know, you cannot predict their response. A truly merciful God would pardon them even in hell if they asked for it.

 

[estesbob]

Hitetlen:

To take our free will away just when are able to make truly informed decision is unjust and cruel.

What is your take on this analysis?

My take is you are puting your immortal soul at rsik based on a flawed analysis. We have complete knowledge of what God expects of us, free will or not. The Catholic Church is the receptacle of that knowledge. Christ founded this Church and gave it the authority to guide us on our Spiritual journey. You ignore the TRUTH as explained by God’s Church at your own risk.

 

[nico1089]

Hitetlen:

That would alos be a valid concern, but I am asking something different. The question is why can’t we freely change our mind whether we wish to be with God, once we gain actual proof of his existence?

Hi Hitelin, i believe that hell is not permanent. The soul has an opportunity to learn and choose God and after a time “graduates” to heaven, where we can continue learning and drawing closer to him. i look at it his way–God is my friend. Friendship means overlooking the faults of your friends, you always forgive. You always LOVE, and love means accepting your friends in the state of spiritual evolution where they are. God knows my heart. He knows i don’t know everything and make mistakes. But i try to do the best i can with my limited abilities. i trust God 100%. i turn my will over to him to the best of my knowledge, yet i still make mistakes. i judge my self and not others. i forgive others, not so i will be forgiven but because it is what God wants me to do. It certainly makes life more pleasant and becomes easier. i take the becoming easier as a sign of God’s grace and friendship. i take my whole life as a gift from God as a friend to another. If believing this way makes me an outcast or heretic, so be it. i trust God.–nicolo

 

[estesbob]

nico1089:

Hi Hitelin, i believe that hell is not permanent.

There is aboslutely no evidence that this is true. in fact it is contrary to the Doctrone of every Chrisitan Church I know of and most non-chrisitan churches as well. It most certainy is direct contradiction of the teachings of our Church. if you want to take a chance that you can reject God at will while you are alive but your good “friend” God will bail you afterwards have at it -BUT I prsonally would not take the chance.

 

[gardenswithkids]

nico1089:

i believe that hell is not permanent. The soul has an opportunity to learn and choose God and after a time “graduates” to heaven, where we can continue learning and drawing closer to him.

I think you are confusing hell with purgatory. Purgatory is not permanent, but hell is. Those in purgatory will eventually “graduate” to heaven, but those in hell will not.

 

[mlchance]

Hitetlen:

What is your take on this analysis?

That, as usual, the unbeliever doesn’t know enough about Catholic teaching to justify his unbelief.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[doomhammer]

Hitetlen:

To take our free will away just when are able to make truly informed decision is unjust and cruel. What is your take on this analysis?

Luke 16, 30-31: “…’if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”

 

[gardenswithkids]

Hitetlen:

Nobody “chooses” eternal suffering and damnation - knowingly. Not even masochists would do that.

I think you are wrong to say no one chooses eternal suffering. I believe some angels freely chose hell because there was something required of them in heaven: service. If a person can not learn to love serving God here on earth, why would that person suddenly enjoy serving Him in heaven?

Hitetlen:

And why can’t people who may have “tasted” hell change their minds?

Some people do “taste” hell here on earth, which may explain wars and human suffering. And for many, such suffering brings them to repent.

Hitetlen:

I am glad you did not insinuate that you “know” how people would think in hell. And if you don’t know, you cannot predict their response.

I hope I never “know” how people think in hell–because it would probably mean I’m there. But you don’t know either, so you can’t predict their response either…

Hitetlen:

A truly merciful God would pardon them even in hell if they asked for it.

You’re back onto the free will question. What if they can freely ask to be pardoned, but they WILL not? You made the assertion that one would not choose eternal suffering, but how do you know that some don’t choose that of their own FREE WILL?

That is the fault in your logic: one does not have the FREE WILL to choose heaven if one doesn’t have an alternative. And as I wrote earlier, I don’t believe we loose our free will after we die. If you want those in hell to change their minds, then you want to impose *your *will on them.

 

[Hitetlen]

nico1089:

Hi Hitelin, i believe that hell is not permanent. The soul has an opportunity to learn and choose God and after a time “graduates” to heaven, where we can continue learning and drawing closer to him. i look at it his way–God is my friend. Friendship means overlooking the faults of your friends, you always forgive. You always LOVE, and love means accepting your friends in the state of spiritual evolution where they are. God knows my heart. He knows i don’t know everything and make mistakes. But i try to do the best i can with my limited abilities. i trust God 100%. i turn my will over to him to the best of my knowledge, yet i still make mistakes. i judge my self and not others. i forgive others, not so i will be forgiven but because it is what God wants me to do. It certainly makes life more pleasant and becomes easier. i take the becoming easier as a sign of God’s grace and friendship. i take my whole life as a gift from God as a friend to another. If believing this way makes me an outcast or heretic, so be it. i trust God.–nicolo

I like your take on this problem and I would not have any problem if it were true. However I see that others do not agree with you. Too bad, your approach is quite humane.