God's (lack of) Free Will?

[FurmanTM]

If possible, someone refute the following:

It cannot be the case that God is essentially all-good (omnibenevolent) and possesses free will!

Why? If God is all good, then given any choice, He must (as a result of His essential goodness) chose the option that leads to the best of all possible worlds. But if this is the case, God cannot chose other than He does. Hence, God doesn’t have free will. And if God doesn’t have free will, then He is not worth of praise for the good that He does, nor is it possible for us to enter into a loving relationship with Him (as He is essentially an automaton).

But we suppose that God does have free will. Hence, working backwards, it must not be the case that God is ESSENTIALLY good. This may seem heretical but it isn’t. We can still say that God is all-good in the following way: “God is all-good” means that every time there is a choice to be made, God chooses the good (over evil). Hence, we call Him all good. And hence, God is worthy of worship.

But this presents one major problem concerning the problem of evil. JL Mackie, a critic of the free will defense, argues that God should have made us such that we always freely do good. And the theist responds by claiming that such a being is a logical impossibility (hence not even God could make us that way). However, this isn’t true. God is supposed to be just such a being. Hence, the free will defense against the problem of evil is shattered.

 

[Other_Eric]

It’s axiomatic, I think, that in a battle of wits between man and God, man is always sure to lose. Such is the folly of attempting to marry God inextricably to our own limited reason.

Let’s first discuss what exactly it is we mean by “free will” before we go any further. Free will is generally thought of as the ability to choose freely from either a virtuous course of action or an evil one. As far as this goes, it might seem simple, but it is really much more complex once one begins to really think about it.

If God is really God, then we cannot talk of “good” and “evil” as if they were some sort of super-reality to which God was subject. Nor can we make the mistake of calling God so completely transcendent that He need not be subject to the moral code that has been handed down for thousands of years. Let us instead think of God as the very embodiment of what we mean the term “good” to represent.

We therefore assign God a nature. He is goodness. The nature of human free will, viewed in this light, becomes the freedom to choose God (what is good) over that which is not God (evil). God does not choose evil because this would contradict His very nature.

Now it might be easy to jump in here at this point and say that since God can’t choose evil that He is essentially an impersonal automaton. Of course, this is to misread my argument. “Can’t” and “does not” are two very different values. What I mean to suggest is that God does not do evil for the same reason that I do not go dancing naked in the streets. It’s not that we are both incapable of doing these things, it’s that we have no desire to and the rest of creation is grateful for it.

Now, I suppose this is where you are going to jump in and posit the strange argument of Mr. Mackie, which is really more of a play on words than it is anything substantive. Having established that God is a being who does not do evil, not because He encounters some sort of constraint or barrier outside of Himself but because He does not have the desire to do such things, we may ask why it is that humans aren’t created in the same fashion. Well, according to Christianity, we were.

To be “free” to do either good or evil and to be limited, as humans are, means, as a simple matter of statistics, that there is always going to exist the people who choose evil. This is the trap our first parents fell into. As a result, our desires have been skewed. God’s desires, still being in perfect harmony with his own nature, remain such that he will always choose good over evil

 

[Catholic_Dude]

If possible, someone refute the following:

It cannot be the case that God is essentially all-good (omnibenevolent) and possesses free will!

Why? If God is all good, then given any choice, He must (as a result of His essential goodness) chose the option that leads to the best of all possible worlds. But if this is the case, God cannot chose other than He does. Hence, God doesn’t have free will. And if God doesn’t have free will, then He is not worth of praise for the good that He does, nor is it possible for us to enter into a loving relationship with Him (as He is essentially an automaton).

But we suppose that God does have free will. Hence, working backwards, it must not be the case that God is ESSENTIALLY good. This may seem heretical but it isn’t. We can still say that God is all-good in the following way: “God is all-good” means that every time there is a choice to be made, God chooses the good (over evil). Hence, we call Him all good. And hence, God is worthy of worship.

But this presents one major problem concerning the problem of evil. JL Mackie, a critic of the free will defense, argues that God should have made us such that we always freely do good. And the theist responds by claiming that such a being is a logical impossibility (hence not even God could make us that way). However, this isn’t true. God is supposed to be just such a being. Hence, the free will defense against the problem of evil is shattered.

I will bet St Thomas talked about this issue, at least the first half and answered it in a clean crisp way but I wouldnt know where to look for this, thankfully there are more informed Catholics around here who can pull it up.

I think this deals with the popular question “If God is almighty then could He make a rock so huge even He couldnt lift it?”
On the surface this appears to disprove God’s power but it is really a misunderstanding. God cant do anything contrary to His nature, to do so undermines Himself. To make a rock bigger than Himself means He undermines Himself and that is impossible because an infinite God cant out-do Himself.

 

[Contarini]

If possible, someone refute the following:

It cannot be the case that God is essentially all-good (omnibenevolent) and possesses free will!

Why? If God is all good, then given any choice, He must (as a result of His essential goodness) chose the option that leads to the best of all possible worlds.

Aquinas would disagree with you. Whether there is such a thing as the “best of all possible worlds” is dubious, but Aquinas says that God could have created a world with more goodness in it than the one we know (for instance, supposing that we are the only rational animals in the universe, which Aquinas would have supposed, God could have made ten such species; if God made ten, then He could have made a hundred, and so on ad infinitum).

Part of the problem with the way modern people pose the question is that we tend to think of goodness as the absence of suffering/evil, while Aquinas saw goodness as anything with positive value. So when modern people say “the best of all possible worlds” they tend to mean the world with the least suffering and evil, while in Thomas’s terms it would be the world with the greatest abundance and degree of created goodness. Since God’s creative ability is infinite like Himself, and since there is always an infinite gap between finite good and the infinite God, this is a nonsensical concept–however much good God chose to create, He could always create more.

Thus, for Aquinas God has “libertarian” free will inasmuch as he can choose among various goods. God cannot choose evil, but that does not limit His freedom. Indeed, for Aquinas and for the classical Western Christian tradition generally, the “ability” to choose evil is in fact a defect. Augustine said that even for humans the greatest possible freedom was “non posse peccare”–the inability to sin.

Edwin

 

[masterjedi747]

God cannot choose evil, but that does not limit His freedom. Indeed, for Aquinas and for the classical Western Christian tradition generally, the “ability” to choose evil is in fact a defect. Augustine said that even for humans the greatest possible freedom was “non posse peccare”–the inability to sin.

Correct!
Finally, someone else who knows the answer…

 

[dafalax]

Edwin, is it not possible that this world with its evil produces more good than any other possible world. I mean it is possible that in this world this mix of evil and good produces the most abundant and profound goodness just this specific mix and no other would produce the same amount of good and so it would be possible that this is the best of all possible worlds. This it seems to me would explain why God allows so much evil because it makes possible high types of good i.e. the soldier who jumps on agrenade to save his friends in a war.

 

[dafalax]

I don’t think that God Hhad to create, I think creation was niether a good nor evil act, it niether added to God nor dtracted from him so the real question is why did he create?

 

[Contarini]

Edwin, is it not possible that this world with its evil produces more good than any other possible world. I mean it is possible that in this world this mix of evil and good produces the most abundant and profound goodness just this specific mix and no other would produce the same amount of good and so it would be possible that this is the best of all possible worlds.

I don’t see how this could be the best possible world, unless God’s creative ability is limited. See my previous remarks about the number of rational species.

Your argument about the “mix” of good and evil is a persuasive one, though (at least to me). In other words, you’re suggesting that if there were any less evil the world would contain less heroic goodness, while if there were more evil (if most of us faced the choice between worshipping Satan or being tortured to death, for instance), there might be very little good at all. My point is simply that this assumes a world (i.e., universe–we’re not just talking about Earth) of approximately the same size and variety as the one we inhabit. God could have created a world with even more variety of creatures, which would have been “better” in the sense that it would have reflected God’s being more richly.

Edwin

 

[blessedtoo]

I hope this additional question doesn’t derail the conversation, but I have also been pondering this issue of free will and the inability to sin but with regard to the Virgin Mary, not God. This question came up for me after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the apologist response I received was a tad lacking. If Mary was incapable of sin, how could she exercise her free will? Am I completely misunderstanding the concept of free will? I hadn’t even considered this question with regard to God, but now…

 

[Nan_S]

I hope this additional question doesn’t derail the conversation, but I have also been pondering this issue of free will and the inability to sin but with regard to the Virgin Mary, not God. This question came up for me after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the apologist response I received was a tad lacking. If Mary was incapable of sin, how could she exercise her free will? Am I completely misunderstanding the concept of free will? I hadn’t even considered this question with regard to God, but now…

God CHOSE to be all-good and eternally unchanging. That’s the ultimate exercise of Free Will.

Mary was saved from the stain Original Sin at the moment of her conception - yes, she still had to “be saved” - and then CHOSE to live a life fully in conformance with God’s will. She was not incapable of sin. She could have sinned anytime she wanted to, but she chose otherwise. Free Will again.

The definition of sin is NOT the opposite of God. The definition of sin is the absence of God. The rejection of God.

Dark is the absence of light. Cold is the absence of heat. Both have limits. Once you reach total darkness or absolute zero, can you make dark darker or cold colder? Nay.

Sin is the absence of God. Mary chose to walk with God every moment of her life, even when the sinful actions of others pierced her heart.

Nan

 

[Contarini]

I hope this additional question doesn’t derail the conversation, but I have also been pondering this issue of free will and the inability to sin but with regard to the Virgin Mary, not God. This question came up for me after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the apologist response I received was a tad lacking. If Mary was incapable of sin, how could she exercise her free will? Am I completely misunderstanding the concept of free will? I hadn’t even considered this question with regard to God, but now…

My understaning of the Catholic position is that Mary could have chosen to sin, just as the first Eve did. But unlike the rest of us she did not have an innate sinful nature causing her to sin. So she had more, not less, free will than other humans.

I repeat my earlier claim that in traditional Christian thinking (at least in the West) lack of the “ability” to sin would actually denote greater, not less free will. But I don’t think that’s the issue with the IC.

Edwin

 

[Patrick7]

My understaning of the Catholic position is that Mary could have chosen to sin, just as the first Eve did. But unlike the rest of us she did not have an innate sinful nature causing her to sin. So she had more, not less, free will than other humans.

But didn’t God know Eve would eat the fruit and that Mary would say yes?