How can a person have free will and yet God is in control?

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james_neville

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Im sorry if this is in the wrong forum, not sure which one this would come under. I was wondering what is the churches stance on the aspect of Free will and God’s control over everything?

e.g. If we ask God for protection from bad things happening from other people, would he not have to control them in some way and thus remove their Free Will?
 
james_neville said:
I was wondering what is the churches stance on the aspect of Free will and God’s control over everything?

would he not have to control them…l?
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If God is in control why do you say that He would have to do something? If He is in control he does not have to do what we would like. Your statement would be true only if YOU were in control, not God.

Because God, being in control, did not make us robots but gave us the power of Free Will because He want’s us to love Him. Love must be freely given, if it is forced then it is not real love.
 
That is an excellent answer.

I myself pondered the very same question in the past, about God and free will. Not in “suspicion”, but just for clarification’s sake. I understand that God made me the way I am, and He gave me the right to choose for myself what is right and wrong.
 
james_neville said:
e.g. If we ask God for protection from bad things happening from other people, would he not have to control them in some way and thus remove their Free Will?
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Of course. Too bad that God seems to prefer the freedom of the rapists and murderers over the freedom of the victims. We, on the other hand, IF and WHEN we have good, reliable information that a rape / murder is about to happen, do not hesitate to interfere and prevent that planned rape / murder. This shows how inferior we are compared to God. But I would hesitate to suggest to emulate God… dunno why? just a gut feeling.
 
Trurl said:
Of course. Too bad that God seems to prefer the freedom of the rapists and murderers over the freedom of the victims. We, on the other hand, IF and WHEN we have good, reliable information that a rape / murder is about to happen, do not hesitate to interfere and prevent that planned rape / murder. This shows how inferior we are compared to God. But I would hesitate to suggest to emulate God… dunno why? just a gut feeling.
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Why are you such a troll?
 
Trurl said:
Why don’t you point out which part of my post was incorrect or objectionable? Let me learn from my mistakes. 😉
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I don’t think you will ever learn anything, so why bother. God is stupid and evil and Trul is a great gift to mankind. God is waiting for Trul to fix everything. How about that. You win we are all stupid. Nice of you to visit.

:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:
 
Trurl said:
Of course. Too bad that God seems to prefer the freedom of the rapists and murderers over the freedom of the victims. We, on the other hand, IF and WHEN we have good, reliable information that a rape / murder is about to happen, do not hesitate to interfere and prevent that planned rape / murder. This shows how inferior we are compared to God. But I would hesitate to suggest to emulate God… dunno why? just a gut feeling.
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God values the freedom of humans enough to allow them to be free of even Him-of His will/ intervention- so that all can see how we’ll then comport ourselves with said freedom to play god. We can be a force for good, for evil, or just plain old inbetweeners who don’t really much care in the end, in spite of any moral posturing we may or may not assume.
 
fhansen said:
God values the freedom of humans enough to allow them to be free of even Him-of His will/ intervention- so that all can see how we’ll then comport ourselves with said freedom to play god. We can be a force for good, for evil, or just plain old inbetweeners who don’t really much care in the end, in spite of any moral posturing we may or may not assume.
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Well, this is what you say. I rather doubt that you (or anyone else) are/is in the position to assume to be God’s mouth-piece. It seems to be rather presumptious.

But the point is that God does not “SEEM” to value the freedom of the victim over the freedom of the rapist / murderer, on the very contrary. WE, however, if and when our limited resources allow us, DO value the freedom of the victim over the freedom of the attacker, and WE do try to prevent violent acts, as much as we can. And somehow we consider our efforts to be praiseworthy. We do not value those, who have the knowledge and the wherewithal to prevent violent acts, and yet they stay on the side and allow them to happen. Do you really think that we are wrong? And we should allow all the rapes and murders to go on - in the name of “freedom”?
 
Trurl said:
Well, this is what you say. I rather doubt that you (or anyone else) are/is in the position to assume to be God’s mouth-piece. It seems to be rather presumptious.

But the point is that God does not “SEEM” to value the freedom of the victim over the freedom of the rapist / murderer, on the very contrary. WE, however, if and when our limited resources allow us, DO value the freedom of the victim over the freedom of the attacker, and WE do try to prevent violent acts, as much as we can. And somehow we consider our efforts to be praiseworthy. We do not value those, who have the knowledge and the wherewithal to prevent violent acts, and yet they stay on the side and allow them to happen. Do you really think that we are wrong? And we should allow all the rapes and murders to go on - in the name of “freedom”?
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So is God bad because He gave us freedom or is He bad because He does not restrict our freedom?
 
God’s providence and our free will seem to be a contradiction. God’s providence is necessary. So, that must mean that our free will is the will of God. The actions we do independently are the actions God wills for us to do. :idea:
 
Trurl said:
Well, this is what you say. I rather doubt that you (or anyone else) are/is in the position to assume to be God’s mouth-piece. It seems to be rather presumptious.

But the point is that God does not “SEEM” to value the freedom of the victim over the freedom of the rapist / murderer, on the very contrary. WE, however, if and when our limited resources allow us, DO value the freedom of the victim over the freedom of the attacker, and WE do try to prevent violent acts, as much as we can. And somehow we consider our efforts to be praiseworthy. We do not value those, who have the knowledge and the wherewithal to prevent violent acts, and yet they stay on the side and allow them to happen. Do you really think that we are wrong? And we should allow all the rapes and murders to go on - in the name of “freedom”?
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Well then, it* SEEMS* that, on this planet, humans are the ones who must be the “hands of god” or the “hands of the devil”-we’re the only players in sight. And, IMO, the only humans who’d have the right, from a position of moral superiority, to blame God or anyone else for not doing everything within their power to stop evil would be those who’re already doing everything within their own power to stop evil. But I’m not sure why it would matter to you anyway, seeing as you believe morality to be relative- implying that evil exists only in the eyes of the beholder- as I believe you maintained in another thread??? Why blame God for permitting something you apparently don’t even believe exists?
 
fhansen said:
Well then, it* SEEMS* that, on this planet, humans are the ones who must be the “hands of god” or the “hands of the devil”-we’re the only players in sight. And, IMO, the only humans who’d have the right, from a position of moral superiority, to blame God or anyone else for not doing everything within their power to stop evil would be those who’re already doing everything within their own power to stop evil. But I’m not sure why it would matter to you anyway, seeing as you believe morality to be relative- implying that evil exists only in the eyes of the beholder- as I believe you maintained in another thread??? Why blame God for permitting something you apparently don’t even believe exists?
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bogeydogg said:
So is God bad because He gave us freedom or is He bad because He does not restrict our freedom?
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It is a custom of many posters around here to evade a hard question by asking something else. I decided that I will only answer their question when they already answered mine. Sounds fair?

If so, give me a reasoned reply to: “should we value the freedom of the rapists over the freedom of the victims?” or “are we correct to interfere and limit (take away) the freedom of the criminals?”.

If this is not fair, in your eyes, then there is no reason to continue.
 
Trurl said:
It is a custom of many posters around here to evade a hard question by asking something else. I decided that I will only answer their question when they already answered mine. Sounds fair?

If so, give me a reasoned reply to: “should we value the freedom of the rapists over the freedom of the victims?” or “are we correct to interfere and limit (take away) the freedom of the criminals?”.

If this is not fair, in your eyes, then there is no reason to continue.
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It may be of some help if you define what you mean by freedom. It would seem, in the culture that I live in, that the “freedom” of rapists is taken away from them by imprisonment, while the “freedom” of the victims is retained as they are not incarcerated.

If you are referring to some other kind of freedom please explain?
 
DCNBILL said:
It may be of some help if you define what you mean by freedom. It would seem, in the culture that I live in, that the “freedom” of rapists is taken away from them by imprisonment, while the “freedom” of the victims is retained as they are not incarcerated.

If you are referring to some other kind of freedom please explain?
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Close, but not precise. The starting problem was that God “seems” to value the freedom of the rapist by NOT interfering in the process. The freedom of the victim (the freedom NOT to be raped) is taken away by the rapist, with the “tacit” approval of God.

This is contrasted by our approach: if and when we have good information that a rape is about to take place, we interfere and prevent the act, and thus we do not allow the freedom of the rapist to “trump” the freedom of the person to be raped.

I asked if our approach is correct, or should we “respect” the freedom of the rapist over the freedom of “rapee” - and as such “emulating” what God does (or rather does not do). So far there is no reply, only a few pitiful attempts to evade and derail the question. The truth is that I am sick of these attempts. If they believe that God’s approach is the correct one (the non-interference), then they should have the integrity to say it. If they believe that we are right in our attempts of interfering with the criminals, then they should come clean and criticise God for his “non-interference policy”. Of course both actions are non-palatable, and they attempt to wiggle out from taking sides. That is an intellectually cowardly behavior, and - yet - they wish to be respected.
 
Trurl said:
Close, but not precise. The starting problem was that God “seems” to value the freedom of the rapist by NOT interfering in the process. The freedom of the victim (the freedom NOT to be raped) is taken away by the rapist, with the “tacit” approval of God.

This is contrasted by our approach: if and when we have good information that a rape is about to take place, we interfere and prevent the act, and thus we do not allow the freedom of the rapist to “trump” the freedom of the person to be raped.

I asked if our approach is correct, or should we “respect” the freedom of the rapist over the freedom of “rapee” - and as such “emulating” what God does (or rather does not do). So far there is no reply, only a few pitiful attempts to evade and derail the question. The truth is that I am sick of these attempts. If they believe that God’s approach is the correct one (the non-interference), then they should have the integrity to say it. If they believe that we are right in our attempts of interfering with the criminals, then they should come clean and criticise God for his “non-interference policy”. Of course both actions are non-palatable, and they attempt to wiggle out from taking sides. That is an intellectually cowardly behavior, and - yet - they wish to be respected.
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I think that it would be out of consideration to equate the actions or to be more precise “act” of a creator with the actions of creatures. It would seem that a creature would be so ontologically separated from the Creator that this type of consideration would be out of the question. The Creator has the function of creating and setting the ground rules, (whatever those may be.) The rational creature has the function of operating within the rules of the Creator and determining what the expectations of the Creator are.
 
james_neville said:
Im sorry if this is in the wrong forum, not sure which one this would come under. I was wondering what is the churches stance on the aspect of Free will and God’s control over everything?

e.g. If we ask God for protection from bad things happening from other people, would he not have to control them in some way and thus remove their Free Will?
Click to expand...
Free will simply means that we can freely choose to love God and keep His commandments or not.

We can pray to God to act to prevent bad things from happening to other people but He in no way controls them. If I get your phrasing right, He may intervene to avoid you being mugged. You might just have the unexplained desire to take a different route one day. For others, He may act to intervene in a number of ways.

God’s control over things covers a wide area. But He does allow evil to happen, for now. But Jesus told us:

bible.cc/luke/17-1.htm

In other words, we are to be in line with His will, which will be the best for us, both in this life and the next.

Peace,
Ed
 
Trurl said:
Of course. Too bad that God seems to prefer the freedom of the rapists and murderers over the freedom of the victims.
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What does freedom from constraint have to do with the OP?

Geez, at least have the decency to stick to the point before you go off-rails to start patting yourself on the back for being better than God.

To answer the OP. It is very ambiguous what you have in mind. But I’ll assume that you’re thinking how can we be free if God knows (predestines?) what will happen. There are several hypothetical ways to show the compatibility, and I’ll just use one. God and humans concurrently bring about what will happen. God has a plan and will bring about what will happen, but that does not preclude our free actions having a say on what will happen. 👍
 
james_neville said:
e.g. If we ask God for protection from bad things happening from other people, would he not have to control them in some way and thus remove their Free Will?
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I don’t understand why he would have to remove someone’s free will if we asked him. Does always God do something because we ask him? I don’t see why free-will should be different.
 
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