God, moral good and free will

[Bobber90]

Does anyone know of any counter-argument to this?

God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good. Seeing as God has not, He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell. Having created this tendency to induce eternal suffering, God is not good.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

Does anyone know of any counter-argument to this?

God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good. Seeing as God has not, He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell. Having created this tendency to induce eternal suffering, God is not good.

For all practical purposes, there is no such thing as “free will”. The consequences are so dire if you make the “wrong” choice that whole argument becomes moot.

You have two “choices”; you can be good or be bad. If you are bad, you get damned to Hell for all eternity so if you don’t want that (who does?) you better be good “or else”.

JMHO.

 

[FightingFat]

Does anyone know of any counter-argument to this?

God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good. Seeing as God has not, He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell. Having created this tendency to induce eternal suffering, God is not good.

I think that’s exactly what God did do, but in our free will, we chose to sin. This is the Genesis narrative, which shows us turning away from God; from what God knew would be the best thing for us and grasping for ‘godhood’ ourselves. Jesus provides the antidote [BIBLEDRB]Philippians 2:8[/BIBLEDRB]

 

[bmullins]

He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell.

He has set it up also so that all people can repent, and presumably also go to Heaven.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Does anyone know of any counter-argument to this?

God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good.

If bad cannot be chosen then it is not a free will.

Seeing as God has not, He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell. Having created this tendency to induce eternal suffering, God is not good.

Remember hell is only a separation from God. So hell is the mercy of not being forced to spend eternity in Heaven against your choice.

For all practical purposes, there is no such thing as “free will”. The consequences are so dire if you make the “wrong” choice that whole argument becomes moot.

You have two “choices”; you can be good or be bad. If you are bad, you get damned to Hell for all eternity so if you don’t want that (who does?) you better be good “or else”.

JMHO.

This is the classic good from fear argument. If you do good for selfish reasons then you did not do good at all. As a child you may be trained this way but unless you change to do good because it is good then you achieved nothing on your own and only question the training method.

hope that helps

 

[roseo64]

i wonder where you got your education???
God DID give us free will–the ability to choose!! free will is what differentiates us from the animals.
Adam and eve had free will–they “chose” the wrong thing…and so on and on.
our Blessed Mother had free will–and she “chose” the right thing.
we choose to eat certain foods over others, we choose to watch this movie instead of that one…up to a certain age our parents “choose” what they think is best for us.
the spiritual realm or our souls --increase or decrease – with the Holy Spirit depending on what our minds and hearts “choose”.
our world is made simple by God who is GOOD and what He teaches us through Jesus, Our Blessed Mother, the Church, etc,
if you don’t see this as Good–you are surely following the wrong path, which is what the evil spirit wants from you.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

This is the classic good from fear argument. If you do good for selfish reasons then you did not do good at all. As a child you may be trained this way but unless you change to do good because it is good then you achieved nothing on your own and only question the training method.

hope that helps

That makes absolutely no sense to me, but I’ll assume that’s just because I don’t understand exactly what you are saying.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

For all practical purposes, there is no such thing as “free will”. The consequences are so dire if you make the “wrong” choice that whole argument becomes moot.

You have two “choices”; you can be good or be bad. If you are bad, you get damned to Hell for all eternity so if you don’t want that (who does?) you better be good “or else”.

JMHO.

That makes absolutely no sense to me, but I’ll assume that’s just because I don’t understand exactly what you are saying.

Well if you have two choices you have four outcomes :

1. Do good for good reasons
2. Do good for bad reasons ( your earlier discription)
3. Do bad for good reasons ( not common but can occur)
4. Do bad for bad reason (concupiscence, ie the seven deadly sins)

So the questions posted ignore some options particularly #1 & #3

hope that helps

 

[Lost_Sheep]

Well if you have two choices you have four outcomes :

1. Do good for good reasons
2. Do good for bad reasons ( your earlier discription)
3. Do bad for good reasons ( not common but can occur)
4. Do bad for bad reason (concupiscence, ie the seven deadly sins)

So the questions posted ignore some options particularly #1 & #3

hope that helps

So “doing good so you don’t go to Hell” is an example of Doing Good for Bad Reasons?

 

[bmullins]

So “doing good so you don’t go to Hell” is an example of Doing Good for Bad Reasons?

Think more along the lines of this:

A man owns a deli downtown and makes more than enough money to be comfortable. He’s not struggling and can afford to give away a few meals to help out the people in this down turned economy. Every Monday morning there is a homeless man just down the street from his shop, and every Monday morning he goes inside gets some food, and gives the man a cup of coffee and sends him on his way.

You can do good for good reasons: The man does it because he feels compassion for the homeless man and wants him to have food, to give of what he has with generosity.

You can do good for bad reasons: The man does it because he thinks having a homeless man down the street from his shop is detracting from business. He doesn’t give out of charity, but because he wants to make more money. He could care less about the man being homeless or having food, all he is worried about is profit.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

So “doing good so you don’t go to Hell” is an example of Doing Good for Bad Reasons?

Who benefits?

[edit]
I should add the key issue is: Are you doing “good” only to benefit yourself? If the answer is yes then you are not doing good at all; you are simply disguising a selfish action. You may want to read Ann Rand

 

[Lost_Sheep]

You can do good for good reasons: The man does it because he feels compassion for the homeless man and wants him to have food, to give of what he has with generosity.

Yes, but supposed he does this because giving something back to the poor makes him “feel good”. Doesn’t the personal satisfaction he gets from helping the poor invalidate the good deed? After all, he gets something out of it (the good feeling) that is pleasurable to him?

No one does good simply for the sake of doing good. There is always an ulterior motive.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Yes, but supposed he does this because giving something back to the poor makes him “feel good”. Doesn’t the personal satisfaction he gets from helping the poor invalidate the good deed? After all, he gets something out of it (the good feeling) that is pleasurable to him?

No one does good simply for the sake of doing good. There is always an ulterior motive.

Maybe you knew of Ann? How can you say “There is always an ulterior motive” would it not be easier to live by the rules than to be a priest? How about stories of people who take great risk and even lose their life to aid others. Ann calls them foolish people, maybe you already knew that.

 

[Bobber90]

God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good. Seeing as God has not, He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell. Having created this tendency to induce eternal suffering, God is not good.

Apologies that I have not kept the usernames for the following quotes, but I am more interested in the arguments anyway.

‘If bad cannot be chosen then it is not a free will.’

Is that to say that someone with a morally perfect character, like Mary, could have no free will? Free will is not affected by having choices and always making the right ones.

‘He has set it up also so that all people can repent, and presumably also go to Heaven’

It is not enough that everyone could go to heaven, because some people do not have a sufficiently good character to repent, and so will suffer for eternity.

**‘I think that’s exactly what God did do [give us morally perfect characters], but in our free will, we chose to sin. **This is the Genesis narrative, which shows us turning away from God; from what God knew would be the best thing for us and grasping for ‘godhood’ ourselves. Jesus provides the antidote’

God could not have given us morally perfect characters because, if He did, we would only know of moral wrong by imagination and not by first-hand experience. Original Sin would not have happened - why would a morally perfect person such as Mary turn away from a good God? Given that we do wrong, some of us likely go to hell and that says that God causes eternal suffering that could have been avoided at no cost to free will. The only cost is that He makes us not-ignorant, which hardly seems like a cost.

‘hell is the mercy of not being forced to spend eternity in Heaven against your choice’

Hell is traditionally regarded as being objectively bad, yet here you present distancing yourself from God as not only necessary to free will, but also a morally valid option. I agree that this resolves the problem of evil!

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I am struggling to follow you let’s look at some of this

‘If bad cannot be chosen then it is not a free will.’

Is that to say that someone with a morally perfect character, like Mary, could have no free will? Free will is not affected by having choices and always making the right ones.

Mary was born with the immaculate conception to prepare her soul. I am not sure how that translates to “perfect character”. What I understand from the teaching is that removes her concupiscence. Thus her desire for personal gain from sin was missing. As for the need to have a choice to sin, well, in the absence of sin then no selection matters, as all actions are morally neutral.

…

‘hell is the mercy of not being forced to spend eternity in Heaven against your choice’

Hell is traditionally regarded as being objectively bad, yet here you present** distancing yourself from God as not only necessary to free will**, but also a morally valid option. I agree that this resolves the problem of evil!

Again struggling to follow you, the teaching is that man and angels both were given free will and man chose self control over god’s instruction and thus disobeyed. Similarly some angels generally believe to be 1/3 of the angels(from revelations) chose to disobey. This created Hell which is defined as a separation from god. Now the meaning of the eternal fire is debatable but I would suggest it refers to regret. Now why would you assume one has to distances themself? One has to have the option to chose, but no one has to make that selection

Hope that helps explain it

 

[Bobber90]

I am struggling to follow you let’s look at some of this

Mary was born with the immaculate conception to prepare her soul. … What I understand from the teaching is that removes her concupiscence. Thus her desire for personal gain from sin was missing. As for the need to have a choice to sin, well, in the absence of sin then no selection matters, as all actions are morally neutral.

What kind of process do you suppose goes on for ordinary people or for Mary when deciding an action or reacting to something? I would imagine that Mary was fully appreciative of what was good and bad, and that she would have taken the good option every time because of this knowledge. By comparison, I think that ordinary people would act badly because they do not fully understand the good. Only in this way is it possible to act selfishly and sinfully, because with a full appreciation of the good and bad, no one could possibly conceive of self-interest or personal gain as being separate from the good. In both these cases, ordinary people and Mary have the ability to choose; they have free will. Morality is real; bad is real and no actions are rendered morally neutral. The question is why would only Mary, not the entire human race, be endowed with this appreciation? The consequence of not being able to appreciate the good, however visible it is, is that some will suffer forever in hell.

Again struggling to follow you, the teaching is that man and angels both were given free will and man chose self control over god’s instruction and thus disobeyed. Similarly some angels generally believe to be 1/3 of the angels(from revelations) chose to disobey. This created Hell which is defined as a separation from god. Now the meaning of the eternal fire is debatable but I would suggest it refers to regret. Now why would you assume one has to distances themself? One has to have the option to chose, but no one has to make that selection

Hope that helps explain it

Actually, I think it is impossible to explain. If God is good, no-one who didn’t have a positively bad moral character or innately bad set of motives, could believe it would be a good idea to rebel, given their immediate proximity to Him. It is madness surely that an angel would rebel from the objective manifestation of all that is great? It is paradoxical. If the angels and God were all good, they would be united. If either party was not fully good, there is the possibility of discord, and if the angels had morally bad characters, their creator takes responsibility and is therefore not 100% good. No other arrangement explains it.

 

[preferanonymous]

Does anyone know of any counter-argument to this?

God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good. Seeing as God has not, He has set it up that some people will sin and presumably also go to hell. Having created this tendency to induce eternal suffering, God is not good.

Let me try to break this down into premises and show you where I think it goes wrong

1. God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good.

(He might have even, one might argue, given people free will to choose only amongst good alternatives)

1. God has not done this.

(True)

1. Therefore, a) some people will sin and b) presumably go to hell.

This is where I think the argument goes wrong. The existence of someone going to hell does not seem to follow from the existence of someone sinning. Therefore, it would not follow, on the reason you gave, that God is not good. The tendency is therefore to sin, not to eternal suffering.

 

[Bobber90]

Let me try to break this down into premises and show you where I think it goes wrong

1. God could have given people free will and a morally perfect nature (such as Mary’s), so that they can choose to do good or bad but always choose the good.

(He might have even, one might argue, given people free will to choose only amongst good alternatives)

1. God has not done this.

(True)

1. Therefore, a) some people will sin and b) presumably go to hell.

This is where I think the argument goes wrong. The existence of someone going to hell does not seem to follow from the existence of someone sinning. Therefore, it would not follow, on the reason you gave, that God is not good. The tendency is therefore to sin, not to eternal suffering.

I completely agree with your conclusion that one or even several sins don’t necessitate going to hell, but there must be a point at which sinning leads to eternal suffering, else hell is not real or sin is not wrong.

Incidentally, do you agree that free will can legitimately exist along with a perfect apprehension of objective good, so as to result in human beings with perfect moral characters, ie who never sin?

 

[preferanonymous]

I completely agree with your conclusion that one or even several sins don’t necessitate going to hell, but there must be a point at which sinning leads to eternal suffering, else hell is not real or sin is not wrong.

Yes, but this would not be God’s doing, it would be ours, as a result of our intentional acts. Hence, the conclusion that God is not good would be not be able to be inferred.

 

[Bobber90]

Yes, but this would not be God’s doing, it would be ours, as a result of our intentional acts. Hence, the conclusion that God is not good would be not be able to be inferred.

God is responsible for the set up of reality, including our nature and what happens after death. In this scenario He does not provide us all with the means to avoid hell on all occasions, thereby ensuring that some people will suffer for eternity. If we created artificial intelligence in robots, gave them the same degree of free will as we have, and created a capacity for them to suffer as a consequence of their actions - could we then place blame on the robots and absolve ourselves?

It supports my view that apprehension of the good is what is lacking that you talk about intentional sinning. If anyone knew the good, there would be no way they could intend to do otherwise, and intention to sin therefore can only result from ignorance.