If God gives us free will, what is the point of God?

[Ezrael]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

 

[Lenten_ashes]

He intervenes but doesn’t force people to go against their own will. He sometimes makes circumstances to where we will chose to do the right things in life. If you are thirsty he can put a glass of water and a glass of gasoline in front of you knowing what you will chose…but your will wasn’t violated. You still made the choice.

So I think the purpose of free will is so that we can choose to love him and have communion with him. You can go left or right, but in the end the bigger picture or “God’s plan” or sovereignty isn’t effected. So I don’t see a contradiction.

 

[GEddie]

The point of God???

Better ask what is the point of our life???

ICXC NIKA

 

[petra22]

He intervenes but doesn’t force people to go against their own will. He sometimes makes circumstances to where we will chose to do the right things in life. If you are thirsty he can put a glass of water and a glass of gasoline in front of you knowing what you will chose…but your will wasn’t violated. You still made the choice.

So I think the purpose of free will is so that we can choose to love him and have communion with him. You can go left or right, but in the end the bigger picture or “God’s plan” or sovereignty isn’t effected. So I don’t see a contradiction.

This sounds good to me. And IMHO it all started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve…
He made them just like he made the animals. The animals don’t have free will, but God gave Adam and Eve free will because he wanted them to choose him freely. Animals do God’s bidding all the time. They act on instinct. But man is a step up. Made in the image and likeness of God–with a free will to love God or not.

You need to start from the beginning.

 

[mattp0625]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

God did not create robots.

He created man with the intention of bringing them to Himself - i.e. to live out our lives in His image and join Him heaven by choosing to love and honor Him. Creating robots would defeat the purpose.

He also gave us means to receive graces, which strengthen us, through His church. This does not mean he pre-programmed us.

 

[Ezrael]

@mattp0625

Wouldn’t it be easier for God to create robots?

Man-made robots are rudimentary to be sure, but an omnipotent deity could create some extraordinarily complex “robots” (at that point they kind of outclass human tech) and having these creations which never displease God with pesky stuff like sins or believing in the wrong omnipotent deity.

It doesn’t make sense for God to give the subjects he wants to have adore him 100% of the time, to give them any possibility of straying from worshipping him.

 

[mattp0625]

@mattp0625

Wouldn’t it be easier for God to create robots?

Man-made robots are rudimentary to be sure, but an omnipotent deity could create some extraordinarily complex “robots” (at that point they kind of outclass human tech) and having these creations which never displease God with pesky stuff like sins or believing in the wrong omnipotent deity.

It doesn’t make sense for God to give the subjects he wants to have adore him 100% of the time, to give them any possibility of straying from worshipping him.

Would you rather someone chose to love you? Or would you rather that someone forced them to love you without any will of their own?

 

[fhansen]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

So we could freely choose to align our wills with His, subjugating ourselves to and communing with Him in a relationship of love. This is to be transformed into His image which ultimately results in our sharing in the sheer ineffable happiness that He knows. This is His goal for us. This doesn’t/can’t happen* apart from Him.* And this is what we’re here to learn.

 

[Cathoholic]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity,

What do YOU think the “moral compass for humanity” is Ezreal?

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[Darryl_B]

@mattp0625

Wouldn’t it be easier for God to create robots?

Man-made robots are rudimentary to be sure, but an omnipotent deity could create some extraordinarily complex “robots” (at that point they kind of outclass human tech) and having these creations which never displease God with pesky stuff like sins or believing in the wrong omnipotent deity.

It doesn’t make sense for God to give the subjects he wants to have adore him 100% of the time, to give them any possibility of straying from worshipping him.

That would be find if man projected themselves into the position of God, and said “This is what I, as a man would do, if I were god”.

If God thought like a man, if He exhibited fear of action, He would not be God.

 

[adamhovey1988]

Okay. What is the point of NOT having God if we have free will?

 

[Wesrock]

It doesn’t make sense for God to give the subjects he wants to have adore him 100% of the time, to give them any possibility of straying from worshipping him.

God does not need our worship nor does He want it for his own benefit. Furthermore, God does not desire us as subjects, He desires us as friends, as sons and daughters. He created in order that He might share Himself with us and to call us into that sharing, not because He desired a universe of slaves to praise Him.

 

[HereticAmI]

So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

Because without what we call free will, we’d be but walking, talking, tennis playing panda bears. And that’s what we’d always be.

Now as for why free will, a single line…be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what is the will of Deity. So the point is not what you said, thinking that you have Christian values. The point is turning yourself into Christ. And for why the free will, because our God is giving us the choice to turn ourselves into anti-Christ instead. And as is obvious, there’s a range of options there from one end to the other, with most being a little of both, myself included.

And when you say Christian values, what values are you speaking of? The only value that matters: pick up your cross and follow me. In other words, the state of the world and our humanity would be rather entirely different if more of those proclaiming Christian values were indeed out there bearing the weight of our humanity’s sin on their shoulders.

 

[po18guy]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

Love. Love desires the good of the “other.” God, who consists of, and is, love itself, desires our good and thus gives that love, that ability, that capacity to love, to us - the pinnacles of His creation. Love among creations must be a free choice in order to exist. Force is not love and love cannot be forced. It must be a voluntary act of the free will - the same free will which He gives to us.

 

[Nita]

S

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will.

God isn’t preventing free will when He “intervenes”. He is preventing the accomplishment of what the person freely willed.

 

[fred_conty]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

The natural law is placed in each one, as St.Paul says in Rom. 2:14.

“When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts.”

And the CCC reinforces the same thing,

2072 Since they express man’s fundamental duties towards God and towards
his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

God’s plan is that everyone be redeemed which has happened thru Christ’s suffering. To be justified by his redemption means we choose freely to cooperate with it. It is inside of God’s own will to let us make free choices to accept or reject his plan because that is exactly what he gave us in our nature as man to do. So in that way we can say that what we do is exorcising not only our own freedom but also the will of God, both in good and bad. This does not in any way mean he approves of the bad choice, but that it
is within his will for us to act within our very own nature. Otherwise we would not have created man but some other sort of creature/robot.

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do.

“intervene” does not mean “interfere”. To intervene means we present ideas to a person to plead a cause, not to force a cause or interfere. If God intervened in the sense of forcing our decision making one way or another, then we would no longer be responsible for what we do, since that is removing freedom, which is essential to our very nature as man.

Tho God can force use physical force on anything or anybody, but he will not remove our freedom to assent or dissent to what is happening. Just as the devil may physically take over one’s body, but cannot take over one’s freedom to make their choices for them. Resistence to evil or good is always the person’s own choice even tho other forces outside are making it difficult to make a choice.

God is not contradicting himself in supporting our freedom to choose right or wrong. There is a real difference between God supporting and God approving. Just as we support building cars but don’t always approve of what they might be used for. And so God’s disaproval of man’s use of freedom does not mean his withdrawal of support for that freedom, or that one dosen’t always allow for the other. For the two are distinct.

So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

In a colloquial way, it is who we are. When at the grocery store, we may choose from so many different cerials, by brand and kind. We choose who we want to work for, the street we live on, the school we go to, the car we drive, the day to do our washing, the kind of home we live in, the furniture, the people we run around with, the type of mower for our
yard, the bank, child discipline, bed time, books to read, the food we eat, and so on. We are nothing but decision makers who do so by our free will to pick what we want. We cannot be anything else but be creatures of free will, and anything else would not be us.

So too in our life we must decide about whether we will do right or wrong. Like stealing a camera in a department store, or not. Studying for an exam, or neglecting it. Watching unseemly movies or not. Helping our children or not. Paying our bills or not. And so many more are moral choices we are faced with in our everyday life. Moral decisons are a part of our natural life on earth which we meet every day without trying.

So it isn’t about “why God gave us free will”, it is who we are. And without it we would not be what we are.

 

[fisherman_carl]

@mattp0625

Wouldn’t it be easier for God to create robots?

Man-made robots are rudimentary to be sure, but an omnipotent deity could create some extraordinarily complex “robots” (at that point they kind of outclass human tech) and having these creations which never displease God with pesky stuff like sins or believing in the wrong omnipotent deity.

It doesn’t make sense for God to give the subjects he wants to have adore him 100% of the time, to give them any possibility of straying from worshipping him.

God gave us an intellect and a will because he made us in his image. Having an intellect and a will is a good thing no? He gave us those things for our benefit. He doesn’t need anything from us and he is already perfect and complete in himself. Because we have an intellect we can know things and more importantly we can know God. Having a will means we can love freely, not coerced. These are for our benefit, not God’s. God wanted to give something in his creation the ability to know the one who made them. That we should be so fortunate as to be able to know him. We should be thankful.

 

[ericc]

God isn’t preventing free will when He “intervenes”. He is preventing the accomplishment of what the person freely willed.

I want to add these:

He also intervenes to give us presents sometimes. He intervenes to help us along when we ourselves couldn’t do it by ourselves.

 

[petra22]

I want to add these:

He also intervenes to give us presents sometimes. He intervenes to help us along when we ourselves couldn’t do it by ourselves.

I love this part about God and it is so true. Even the clouds in the sky were made just for us… never a copy, always new… Thank you, God!

 

[tonyrey]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

A false dilemma! To give us free will doesn’t imply that we have absolute power over ourselves. God can quite easily intervene without interfering with our free will and we can never be quite sure of the consequences of our actions and decisions anyway.