God's Will vs. free will

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This past Sunday, my pastor’s homily centered on the idea of God’s Will. He was saying the point how God does not micromanage every single fly or mosquito in the world to decide who they give diseases to, and God does not plan for people to be in a certain place at a certain time for them to get killed in a car crash. This is because these things are not God’s Will. God’s Will is only good. These things are natural occurrences. God does not will them to happen, they just do. I was thinking about this, and it makes sense. It really is quite silly to say that when someone dies it must have been God’s Will. I feel that God can USE these situations to teach us a lesson, but he won’t will the situation itself.

When I came home, I was talking to my Dad about it. He said that he didn’t agree with our pastor. He feels that while God is our Creator and Father, He is more “in Heaven” and we are almost on our own. He felt this way because right now he is incredibly unhappy, and very depressed at where he is in his life. He feels that if God did really interact in our lives, he wouldn’t be in such a hopeless position.

I am confused between the balance of free will and God’s Will. While I know that God doesn’t will that I die in a sudden car crash, he also has the power to stop it. Why doesn’t He stop the millions of babies being killed in abortion or accidents? Is God more detached from my life than I think He is? I tend to think not. I have had several real miracles happen to me and my surrounding family through prayer, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that God isn’t guiding my every action. Also, this is where the Holy Spirit comes in as guidance.

Any opinions or comments on this concept would be greatly appreciated! It would be something that I’d love to talk to my father about, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
 
stephie_venuto said:
This past Sunday, my pastor’s homily centered on the idea of God’s Will. He was saying the point how God does not micromanage every single fly or mosquito in the world to decide who they give diseases to, and God does not plan for people to be in a certain place at a certain time for them to get killed in a car crash. This is because these things are not God’s Will. God’s Will is only good. These things are natural occurrences. God does not will them to happen, they just do. I was thinking about this, and it makes sense. It really is quite silly to say that when someone dies it must have been God’s Will. I feel that God can USE these situations to teach us a lesson, but he won’t will the situation itself.

When I came home, I was talking to my Dad about it. He said that he didn’t agree with our pastor. He feels that while God is our Creator and Father, He is more “in Heaven” and we are almost on our own. He felt this way because right now he is incredibly unhappy, and very depressed at where he is in his life. He feels that if God did really interact in our lives, he wouldn’t be in such a hopeless position.

I am confused between the balance of free will and God’s Will. While I know that God doesn’t will that I die in a sudden car crash, he also has the power to stop it. Why doesn’t He stop the millions of babies being killed in abortion or accidents? Is God more detached from my life than I think He is? I tend to think not. I have had several real miracles happen to me and my surrounding family through prayer, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that God isn’t guiding my every action. Also, this is where the Holy Spirit comes in as guidance.

Any opinions or comments on this concept would be greatly appreciated! It would be something that I’d love to talk to my father about, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
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I think your pastor is correct and your Dad is just depressed ( don’t bother him with such things until he is doing better ). All we know is that God Wills that we do his will at all times but he doesn’t force us. We also know that all the evil in the world, moral and natural, is the result of sin. He does not ordinarily interfer unless to do so would result in some spritual good for someone or some group of people. This is not cruelty on his part because he has promised to draw good out of evil. We must trust him to do that even thouth we may not ever know what that good is.

Linus2nd
 
I disagree with both your pastor and your dad. There are two extremes into which one can fall when considering divine causality.
The first denies lesser causes, such as our own free will. From this perspective, God controls all things such that they have no choice in the matter. This is clearly incorrect as we are rational, intellectual beings, and as such have free will by necessity (1).
The second asserts that God created the world and left it alone to run according its laws, as in Deism. Both your father and pastor appear to have fallen on this side of the mean (not to say that either of them have fallen all the way to this extreme, but that they are closer to it than they are to the other one). This is incorrect insofar as God constantly holds every thing in existence, each according to its nature, and is the first cause of all movement. (2)
As Mark Shea recently said said, “Indeed, a very good definition of orthodoxy might well be “Refusal to abandon tension” just as the very essence of heresy (or as it is often called in our more political era “ideology”) is the urge to destroy tension in favor of over-simplicity.”
The truth lies in the middle.

Pax
Jack
 
Mithra gives us our free will… not false pagan deities.
 
Vigulf said:
I disagree with both your pastor and your dad. There are two extremes into which one can fall when considering divine causality.
The first denies lesser causes, such as our own free will. From this perspective, God controls all things such that they have no choice in the matter. This is clearly incorrect as we are rational, intellectual beings, and as such have free will by necessity (1).
The second asserts that God created the world and left it alone to run according its laws, as in Deism. Both your father and pastor appear to have fallen on this side of the mean (not to say that either of them have fallen all the way to this extreme, but that they are closer to it than they are to the other one). This is incorrect insofar as God constantly holds every thing in existence, each according to its nature, and is the first cause of all movement. (2)
As Mark Shea recently said said, “Indeed, a very good definition of orthodoxy might well be “Refusal to abandon tension” just as the very essence of heresy (or as it is often called in our more political era “ideology”) is the urge to destroy tension in favor of over-simplicity.”
The truth lies in the middle.

Pax
Jack
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Thank you for your response!I am not sure if I portrayed the view of my pastor the best extent, but I disagree with my father as well. The concept of God’s Will versus our will is something I have trouble wrapping my head around most likely because of the imbalance between these two extremes.
 
Thank you for your response!I am not sure if I portrayed the view of my pastor the best extent, but I disagree with my father as well. The concept of God’s Will versus our will is something I have trouble wrapping my head around most likely because of the imbalance between these two extremes.
Click to expand...
This past Sunday, my pastor’s homily centered on the idea of God’s Will. He was saying the point how God does not micromanage every single fly or mosquito in the world to decide who they give diseases to, and God does not plan for people to be in a certain place at a certain time for them to get killed in a car crash. This is because these things are not God’s Will. God’s Will is only good. These things are natural occurrences. God does not will them to happen, they just do. I was thinking about this, and it makes sense. It really is quite silly to say that when someone dies it must have been God’s Will. I feel that God can USE these situations to teach us a lesson, but he won’t will the situation itself.
Click to expand...
What I meant, in regards to your pastor’s homily, is that God does indeed micro-manage every little thing, as here or here. Anyway, good luck with your father! I’ll pray for you!

Pax
Jack
 
We like consistency too much. We are saying, “God should pick one way and stick to it”, but this is all wrong, he knows when to intervene and when not to intervene. We don’t; so, we are baffled.

We also think that death is the end. That nothing counts after death. It is true that our eternal decision of heaven or hell may be decided only before death, but the gifts God hands each to bring about justice and mercy go on.

There are two extremes and God chooses “all of the above”, depending on what we have no knowledge. We are most wrong when we try to play God ourselves. When we choose that this baby would have a poor life and should not be born, but God knows and he can choose or he can allow us the choice and know the choice is/was/will be bad, but still brings forth complete justice and mercy in love to all.
 
stephie_venuto said:
This past Sunday, my pastor’s homily centered on the idea of God’s Will. He was saying the point how God does not micromanage every single fly or mosquito in the world to decide who they give diseases to, and God does not plan for people to be in a certain place at a certain time for them to get killed in a car crash. This is because these things are not God’s Will. God’s Will is only good. These things are natural occurrences. God does not will them to happen, they just do. I was thinking about this, and it makes sense. It really is quite silly to say that when someone dies it must have been God’s Will. I feel that God can USE these situations to teach us a lesson, but he won’t will the situation itself.

When I came home, I was talking to my Dad about it. He said that he didn’t agree with our pastor. He feels that while God is our Creator and Father, He is more “in Heaven” and we are almost on our own. He felt this way because right now he is incredibly unhappy, and very depressed at where he is in his life. He feels that if God did really interact in our lives, he wouldn’t be in such a hopeless position.

I am confused between the balance of free will and God’s Will. While I know that God doesn’t will that I die in a sudden car crash, he also has the power to stop it. Why doesn’t He stop the millions of babies being killed in abortion or accidents? Is God more detached from my life than I think He is? I tend to think not. I have had several real miracles happen to me and my surrounding family through prayer, and I find it incredibly hard to believe that God isn’t guiding my every action. Also, this is where the Holy Spirit comes in as guidance.

Any opinions or comments on this concept would be greatly appreciated! It would be something that I’d love to talk to my father about, but I’m not sure how to go about it.
Click to expand...
 
Read your Catholic Catechism on the subject. I have and my basic understanding is this:

Nothing happens outside of God’s will, whether its good or bad. But he ordered that we, as created beings, would have free will for the singular purpose of choosing to love God first and through that process God’s will gets accomplished and not ours. But since very few people do this, the world is a mess. It is through that process of submitting our will to God’s will, God’s love will be accomplished. The ONLY way to know God’s will is through daily, meditative prayer. Mother Teresa wrote that God’s will comes to us in the grace of the present moment, that is to say when we receive an inspiration to do a good deed, that comes from God and is His will. It is our will whether we choose to do or ignore the inspiration.
 
I agree with your pastor. I have seen two miracles in my life, but I can also attest that God does not micromanage everything. I think donchiccio must have misunderstood the catechism, because God obviously does not will evil. And if he does not will it, then I don’t see how it could happen without violating his will.
 
The meat of this misunderstanding of God’s will is a misunderstanding of our own free will and our meager existence here on earth. We have decided what we think is bad or good, sublime or horrible. We have a human understanding of life and death, of good and bad. We cannot begin to fathom God’s understanding of these things.

I don’t think God micromanages everything on earth. He set things in motion at the creation and he lets them play out the way they must. Mosquitoes have lives to fulfill and they do. Insects, plants, all the animals and fishes in the sea, all of life on earth was set in motion by the creator and each has a part to play in the entirety of the earth. We are part of that. As humans, we are a special part, made in His image but lost in the garden. He knew we would fail, so He sent His Son to redeem our souls from the sin that we choose over Him.

We are presumptuous to say on earth what we believe is God’s will. The only thing we can say with certainty is that it is His will that we follow Him. All the other stuff is simply insignificant.

Michael Hager
 
I believe God is all-powerful and all-knowing. It doesn’t matter whether he actively causes bad things to happen or just lets them happen; what is clear is that he chooses not to intercede when he obviously could.

What does free will have to do with handicapped babies in constant pain, or natural disasters that cause great misery to good and evil people alike? Free will may explain evil people but it falls far short of explaining much of this world’s suffering. I wish I could pretend free will arguments are compelling but, frankly, they totally miss the mark.

I don’t know why God has created the world as it is. I struggle with this daily.
 
God created the world because he wanted other souls that resembled his. He wasn’t just making a bunch of souls because he thought it would be fun, he specifically wanted virtuous souls. A lesson regarding the nature of virtue is in order here. Virtues (and vices) don’t cause patterns in one’s behaviour, they are patterns in one’s behaviour. For this reason, God couldn’t have just created us virtuous, because at the beginning of our existence we hadn’t done anything virtuous yet so by definition we couldn’t have started virtuous. Since good actions wouldn’t require much virtue if we had no incentive to do evil, the only way we could grow in virtue is if we were subject to temptation. Thus, if God wanted to have virtuous souls, he had to give them an incentive to do evil: suffering.
 
origen314 said:
I believe God is all-powerful and all-knowing. It doesn’t matter whether he actively causes bad things to happen or just lets them happen; what is clear is that he chooses not to intercede when he obviously could.

What does free will have to do with handicapped babies in constant pain, or natural disasters that cause great misery to good and evil people alike? Free will may explain evil people but it falls far short of explaining much of this world’s suffering. I wish I could pretend free will arguments are compelling but, frankly, they totally miss the mark.

I don’t know why God has created the world as it is. I struggle with this daily.
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Origen, you must learn to accept things that you do not, and never will, understand. God gave you a brain but that does not mean you can ever understand His plan which, we accept on faith is all good.
 
origen314 said:
I believe God is all-powerful and all-knowing. It doesn’t matter whether he actively causes bad things to happen or just lets them happen; what is clear is that he chooses not to intercede when he obviously could.

What does free will have to do with handicapped babies in constant pain, or natural disasters that cause great misery to good and evil people alike? Free will may explain evil people but it falls far short of explaining much of this world’s suffering. I wish I could pretend free will arguments are compelling but, frankly, they totally miss the mark.

I don’t know why God has created the world as it is. I struggle with this daily.
Click to expand...
The element of chance has to be taken into account in any interpretation of physical reality. Unfortunate coincidences are inevitable in any immensely complex system.
 
jay wilson:
Origen, you must learn to accept things that you do not, and never will, understand. God gave you a brain but that does not mean you can ever understand His plan which, we accept on faith is all good.
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It is irrational to believe in things with which we have persistent intellectual difficulty. Keep in mind that reason is prerequisite to faith. It is wrong to accept something with which our reason finds a flaw. Also, I’m not sure I see the connection between God giving us brains and us understanding his plan.
 
Let’s put this in perspective: in the US each year, there are about 4M births, 1.2M abortions, and 1M miscarriages. Much worse, for almost all of human history, infant/childhood mortality rates were > 50%. The abortions can be attributed to evil; the miscarriages and deaths of innocent infants and children from disease cannot. Why all of this horror and suffering by the innocent?

Linusthe2nd states: “We also know that all the evil in the world, moral and natural, is the result of sin.” How are natural disasters and disease the result of sin, especially when they are visited on the innocent?

jay wilson’s “God works in mysterious ways you can’t understand” argument is a cop-out. Good thing scientists don’t have that attitude or we’d still have > 50% infant mortality rates.
 
origen314 said:
Let’s put this in perspective: in the US each year, there are about 4M births, 1.2M abortions, and 1M miscarriages. Much worse, for almost all of human history, infant/childhood mortality rates were > 50%. The abortions can be attributed to evil; the miscarriages and deaths of innocent infants and children from disease cannot. Why all of this horror and suffering by the innocent?
Click to expand...
**The element of chance has to be taken into account in any interpretation of physical reality. Unfortunate coincidences are inevitable in any immensely complex system.
**
 
tonyrey says “element of chance”? There’s some ad hoc reasoning for you. We’re not talking about one-in-a-million. 20% of pregnancies result in miscarriages. 50% of children used to die, often from infectious disease (which also killed most adults). The all-knowing, all-powerful creator couldn’t do anything about bacterial and viral infections so us lowly humans had to invent antibiotics and immunizations? How about at least a little heads up in the bible like “disease is caused by very tiny organisms, not demons” so we don’t chase our tails for 1900 years?

And then there are hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, … Are you saying God is so limited that he is unable to prevent these events? We get to say “hey, stuff happens” because we are not in control. Your view is that of a deist, not one who believes God is in control.

An airplane is a complex system. Let’s see you hop on a flight when 20% of them crash. These are apologetics for which there should be an apology.
 
origen314 said:
tonyrey says “element of chance”? There’s some ad hoc reasoning for you. We’re not talking about one-in-a-million. 20% of pregnancies result in miscarriages. 50% of children used to die, often from infectious disease (which also killed most adults). The all-knowing, all-powerful creator couldn’t do anything about bacterial and viral infections so us lowly humans had to invent antibiotics and immunizations? How about at least a little heads up in the bible like “disease is caused by very tiny organisms, not demons” so we don’t chase our tails for 1900 years?

And then there are hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, … Are you saying God is so limited that he is unable to prevent these events? We get to say “hey, stuff happens” because we are not in control. Your view is that of a deist, not one who believes God is in control.

An airplane is a complex system. Let’s see you hop on a flight when 20% of them crash. These are apologetics for which there should be an apology.
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There should be an apology for making false deductions which savour of cynicism, scepticism and atheism.

**No blueprint has ever been produced of a feasible physical universe in which accidents and misfortunes never occur.
**
 
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