How Free is our Free-Will?

[Susan1006]

Another thought. What degree of sin is a BIG sin and what degree of sin is just a faux pas. Who killed more people, Hitler or the American Atom bomb? And were Hitler’s victims real martyrs for a reason vs. innocent bystanders… and does it matter?

 

[Justafool]

According to St. Faustina’s Diary (she was given the devotion of the Divine Mercy Chaplet to spread), God’s mercy is even greater than His justice. What we call “punishment” is generally the result of events that happen because of our own choices. Some things we don’t have much control over, such as maladies and natural disasters, but God wants to use these events to draw us closer to His Sacred Heart. So at the time of the particular judgment at death, when souls see our own sins, especially those not washed in the blood of the Lamb, they cannot bear the loving gaze directed at them and send themselves into Hell or Purgatory depending on confession and repentance of sin.

On earth we have the opportunity to go through the purgative stage, the illuminative stage and, for a very few, the unitive phase of complete unity with the Trinity embodied in Our Lord Jesus.

Now I’m not a theologian, but have garnered this thinking from spiriitual reading.

Are these woes you mentioned created by God to draw us closer to him?
If they are then as a parent, I should creaate hardship for my children to draw them closer to me.
This cannot be what you mean. That would be just too stupid.

Regards
DL

 

[Justafool]

Good grief. What has the reaction to do with the decision. Forget the abyss. The bad boys and girls can just campout without their computers for the night. Whether Hitler was free to choose his actions or acting according to some divine plan is an interesting question regarding freedom , but changing the disucssion to whether God’s reaction to our decisions fair or not, is another discussion altogether. That is what I am talking about when I say the arguments are sloppy and won’t have a chance of influencing anyone.

Now you get rid of your scenario again.

You are the sloppy thinker here.

Regards
DL

 

[Justafool]

Just a thought. What if it all happens again. I mean, what if we finally get it right, make peace with God and someone decides to rock the boat again. What then?

By make peace with God you mean give up our freedom and become slaves to him. Right?
His way or hell. Right?

Be he here or not, if he leads by using fear of hell then that is a poor way for anyone to lead.

Regards
DL

 

[Justafool]

Another thought. What degree of sin is a BIG sin and what degree of sin is just a faux pas. Who killed more people, Hitler or the American Atom bomb? And were Hitler’s victims real martyrs for a reason vs. innocent bystanders… and does it matter?

If killing humans is a sin then God doing the same should be a sin as well. His killing spree at the time of Noah killed many more. Includding innocent children and babies.

And why kill all those poor animals. Evil as well I guess.

Not nice. Should we consider excommunication for God?

Regards
DL

 

[Susan1006]

By make peace with God you mean give up our freedom and become slaves to him. Right?
His way or hell. Right?

Be he here or not, if he leads by using fear of hell then that is a poor way for anyone to lead.

Regards
DL

By make peace with God I mean give up our freedom and become slaves to him…wrong.
I meant to say,and I apologize for not being clear - what if through our free will, we decided God was right and we would be happier and healthier, not to mention holier, if we took his advice, and things were going along nicely, and someone decided through his equally free, although just foolish will, to go mano a mano with God like Satan reportedly did back in the day, resulting in another huge debacle. Forever is a long time.

 

[Justafool]

By make peace with God I mean give up our freedom and become slaves to him…wrong.
I meant to say,and I apologize for not being clear - what if through our free will, we decided God was right and we would be happier and healthier, not to mention holier, if we took his advice, and things were going along nicely, and someone decided through his equally free, although just foolish will, to go mano a mano with God like Satan reportedly did back in the day, resulting in another huge debacle. Forever is a long time.

It is and to have or think that God wants to stagnate without change or debate forever is foolish and a curse I would not wish on anyone including God.

God like all of us, evolves and grows his perfection eternally. That is how He set it up. Do not make him a never changing stagnant pool in an evolving universe. he would not like that. Would you?

Regards
DL

 

[Susan1006]

We are in accord. How nice for us. Was that our will, or our acceptance of God’s perfect will?

 

[rookieonedge]

Are these woes you mentioned created by God to draw us closer to him?
If they are then as a parent, I should creaate hardship for my children to draw them closer to me.
This cannot be what you mean. That would be just too stupid.

Regards
DL

The “woes” I mentioned in an earlier post, such as sickness and natural disasters, were a result of original sin when our first parents were tricked by the evil one into thinking they could be like God. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world before their great transgression. If you are a parent, you can begin to understand God’s disciplining in love, as parents do or should do. Parents must give their children boundaries. It’s part of their basic care and love for them. God loves us like a parent. He wants us to call Him Father. He even sent His Only-begotten Son into the world to make up for our sins. He loves us with “an everlasting love” and knows the number of hairs on our head and loves us in our mother’s womb. In fact, He sees us at every moment of our lives all in a nanosecond. He sees your future death as well as your beginning. He knows our future choices and loves us just the same. He keeps calling us to Himself. We can be free of the slavery of sin. As St. Augustine writes, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in Thee.”

 

[St_Gregory]

Snerticus:

Well, I’m afraid you may need to re-phrase it yet again. The only thing I’m getting out of this is pre-destination.

As far as explaining mysteries, paradoxes and such, how are we supposed to do that? Then they wouldn’t be mysteries or paradoxes, etc…

Well I can formulate many many various problems with the notion of Divine Simplicity (e.g what does it mean to talk of God as nothing? If God is nothing then what is He and in what sense is He meaningful? How can God create the world if He is nothing since nothing can come from nothing?) but I just wanted to focus on this because I can use an analogy which is meaningfull without having to use formal logic (e.g using letters) which can confuse people. You may only be getting predestination, but my point is that if God is Simple then He must predestine everything (newadvent.org/summa/1023.htm)

Eucharisted:

Saying your behavior causes knowledge is like saying my knowledge of the sun is based on the sun’s existence. The sun is not my source of knowledge. Rather, I know about the sun because I have experienced it - either directly (seeing the sun) or indirectly (being told about the sun).

I don’t follow your logic here. Your knowledge of the sun IS caused by the sun’s existence: The sun exists, that reality causes you to experience the sun which causes your knowledge of it. So the existence of the sun does cause your knowledge of it.
In a similar way if we insist that we have any form of true freewill which God knows of (because He timelessly knows everything we do) then it must be my behaviour or intent of motion of love/hate which causes God’s knowledge. But if God is in any sense or part caused then He cannot be Divinely simple.
Your counter arguement does not hold up.

 

[Susan1006]

He loves us with “an everlasting love” and knows the number of hairs on our head and loves us in our mother’s womb. In fact, He sees us at every moment of our lives all in a nanosecond. He sees your future death as well as your beginning. He knows our future choices and loves us just the same. He keeps calling us to Himself. We can be free of the slavery of sin. As St. Augustine writes, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in Thee.”

This mystery, which you have so well phrased, of how God can both “know what will be” and “allow change,” is one of the reasons I bow my head in profound respect to God’s majesty and His choice to reaveal to us that there is reason for hope is one of the reasons I am a Christian. I don’t need a God who I can understand, or one who’s decisions agree with my (mostly bad) ones. I am grateful for the mental capacity to believe that there are things I don’t understand and the restlessness to keep searching for the blessings God has offered to his sons and daughters. I am also glad to be reassured that my time so spent is not just some mind game.

 

[fhansen]

This is a formal problem from the triad of Divine Simplicity, God’s Omniscience and my Freewill.

Say I will freely murder Pete next year
God knows I will do this because He Timelessly sees me
This means that at least some of God’s knowledge of it is caused by my doing it
But God has no parts or divisions, therefore there is no “some” about it therefore my murder caused all of God’s knowledge
But God’s knowledge IS God (if we accept a Simple God) therefore my act caused God Himself
Therefore God is not the First Cause, He is contingent (contrary to Simplicity) and we hit a problem of infinite regress.

I keep asking many people, rephrasing it but nobody has overcome it yet. It seems logically necessary that either God is Simple and we have no freewill (Theological Predestination) or God has parts that can move and be caused but we do have freewill.
Either option is unacceptable to a Catholic and, as a Catholic, I insist that I need to be shown the error of my logic or shown another option altogether that doesn’t contradict any other Catholic doctrines.

If you’re going to take an “it’s a mystery” “it’s about faith” or “God build paradoxes into human logic” rout then you need to present a rational argument to defend that.

I do have several other problems with Catholicism but I’ve decided that a one-at-a-time approach is best.

**But if God timelessly sees you, then he can’t learn of anything since he always knows the outcome of every action. Cause and effect implies time but time’s not even part of the equation.
**

 

[Lujack]

The way I’ve always understood is this:

I know that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, because its already happened. Its an established fact, and nothing anyone ever does will change this. Does that mean that John Wilkes Booth never had free will, never had a choice whether or not to shoot the president? No; I just know what choice he made.

Why can’t God’s foreknowledge be similar?

 

[St_Gregory]

But if God timelessly sees you, then he can’t learn of anything since he always knows the outcome of every action. Cause and effect implies time but time’s not even part of the equation.

I don’t deny that God’s Omniscience (Timeless) and our Freewill are compatible: Beothius explained nicely how they are in Consolation of Philosophy (a great book btw)
What I do challenge is how it is compatible with Simplicity.
I accept God is timeless, but your argument has a flaw in it in that time IS a part of the question because we who are meant to have at least some freewill are in time and God’s knows it.
Yes God doesn’t need to learn, but His knowledge of my free actions are still caused by my free actions; but this contradicts the notion of Divine Simplicity.

Lujack:

The way I’ve always understood is this:

I know that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, because its already happened. Its an established fact, and nothing anyone ever does will change this. Does that mean that John Wilkes Booth never had free will, never had a choice whether or not to shoot the president? No; I just know what choice he made.

Why can’t God’s foreknowledge be similar?

Again you miss the point. Yes John did have freewill and yes you absolutely know it; but the crunch is that your knowledge of it is CAUSED by his action. i.e. the fact that John shot Lincoln caused you (indirectly of course) to know it.
But we can’t say God’s foreknowledge is similar because God cannot in any way or part be caused, and so His knowledge of our behaviour cannot be caused, if we accept the Catholic Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.
Basically: either 1 God’s knowledge of our behaviour causes our behaviour (Predestination) or 2 God’s knowledge is caused by our behaviour (which contradicts the idea of Simplicity)

There are a few other options: 3 God doesn’t know of our behaviour at all, 4 God is not Simple but is metaphysically complex, 5 God doesn’t exist. 6 The classic Aristolelian notion of cause-and-effect is not quite correct and a new theory is needed

As you know, options 1-5 are un-Catholic. However 6 is very contraversial since most Catholic theology since Aquinas rests on very Aristotelian philosophy and the arguments from natural theology (esp. Cosmological arguments) lose their strength. However quantum physics has shown has things do seem to happen or come into existence without a cause.

 

[Snerticus]

Well I can formulate many many various problems with the notion of Divine Simplicity (e.g what does it mean to talk of God as nothing? If God is nothing then what is He and in what sense is He meaningful? How can God create the world if He is nothing since nothing can come from nothing?) but I just wanted to focus on this because I can use an analogy which is meaningfull without having to use formal logic (e.g using letters) which can confuse people. You may only be getting predestination, but my point is that if God is Simple then He must predestine everything (newadvent.org/summa/1023.htm)

Well, I guess I’m thinking that predestination is “in the eye of the beholder”. In other words, to us it’s not predestination because we have free will, and, well, we can’t think like God does.

 

[St_Gregory]

Well, I guess I’m thinking that predestination is “in the eye of the beholder”. In other words, to us it’s not predestination because we have free will, and, well, we can’t think like God does.

That seems to me to be a fairly valid argument actually; and I suspect that was roughly what Aquinas was talking about.

I still find it uncomfortable because it means that, though we have freewill, that freewill is directly supertemporally by God — so God is the ultimate cause … which is quite uncomfortable really because it puts the power of moral agency into God’s hands rather than ours.

 

[Snerticus]

I think it just means that the human definition of predestination is much narrower than God’s, because of our limited intelligence.

Fr. Corapi said it best once when he said “God puts definite limits on our intelligence but absolutely no limits on our stupidity.”

 

[The_Fool]

I want to try to explain using game theory and may fail utterly. Okay, so let’s say we have an infinite number of games, for example, chess. God knows every move and counter, which is unfortunate for any opponent of his, and because he has the power of deus ex machina, the normal rules of how each piece moves doesn’t apply to him. There is nothing you can do that he won’t know about or be familiar with; there is omniscience. He has no power over what you choose, even if he doesn’t leave you many options; there is freewill. However, because he exists throughout time, he is not locked in our poor linear model. He exists at the beginning of the game, and at the end, the same way he was before. It doesn’t affect you because you’re stuck in linear time and he’s not, there’s your requested simplicity with regard to the example given. So you killed poor Peter. There He is over there with an internal stop watch counting down the seconds before he event, watching it as it occurs, and remembering it afterward. Perhaps it would be best to say that He exists in a perpetual state of deja vu that never departs. Thus, your action doesn’t affect him, because you can’t do anything to him. The only thing that can affect him is himself.

Unfortunately, my explanation produces problems, but I hope it adequately answers the question.

 

[jkiernan56]

Say I will freely murder Pete next year
God knows I will do this because He Timelessly sees me

This means that at least some of God’s knowledge of it is caused by my doing it

Second Quotation -

Again you miss the point. Yes John did have freewill and yes you absolutely know it;
but the crunch is that your knowledge of it is CAUSED by his action. i
.e. the fact that John shot Lincoln caused you (indirectly of course) to know it.
But we can’t say God’s foreknowledge is similar because God cannot in any way or part
be caused, and so His knowledge of our behaviour cannot be caused,
if we accept the Catholic Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.
Basically: either 1 God’s knowledge of our behaviour causes our behaviour
(Predestination) or 2 God’s knowledge is caused by our behaviour
(which contradicts the idea of Simplicity)

You are dealing with an issue that is outside the realm of time.
We live in time and receive our existence.
God does not live in time nor does God receive His existence.

This I know is absolutely TRUE -

A. God’s Knowledge of Himself (knowledge not caused - not contingent)

1. God is NOT CAUSED
2. Gods KNOWLEDGE is Himself - the WORD who is Eternally Begotten
3. God is self-sufficient and DOES NOT NEED ANYTHING OR ANYONE
4. God could have continued in BEING for all eternity WITHOUT EVER HAVING CREATED ANYTHING!!!

B. God’s Knowledge of what He CAUSES (Knowledge caused - Contingent Knowledge)

1. God CAUSES all existence/reality (all that which need not exist)
2. Anything CAUSED by God is “contingent” Knowledge to God (it need not exist).
3. God’s knowledge of actions performed by human beings does NOT CAUSE THOSE ACTIONS but at the same time it is God giving human beings their Contingent Existence.

Conclusion -

Does the actions of human beings “cause” God’s knowledge of those actions?
Yes, but Gods KNOWLEDGE of those actions are NOT CAUSED by God’s KNOWLEDGE.

We will never get our minds around this one. We are not God.
It starts with God and ends with God. You and I are finite.
Finiteness will NEVER grasp INFINITENESS existing outside of time/change.

 

[Wild_Boar]

Was Abimelech free to ‘touch’ Sarah? Was Pharoah free to let God’s people go? Were the Assyrians free when they attacked Judah and Israel? Is someone who is accustomed to doing evil free to do good? Are the wicked free to escape from the day of destruction?

We are only as free as God chooses us to be.