If God intervenes in the world, do we really have free will?

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Are free will and God’s intervention mutually exclusive?

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
Are free will and God’s intervention mutually exclusive?

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
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I think God’s purpose is to mold and draw our wills into alignment with His- without force. But our wills are never as free or perfect as His and, in any case, He certainly can override ours, even if only to a small degree, with actual grace for the purpose of accomplishing His will in some actual way. The long-term goal, however, is to get us to where we recognize His beauty and the perfection of His will for ourselves, choosing to love Him with our whole heat, soul, mind, and strentgh as we’ve come to know the reason why we should. Then we’ll worship Him in spirit and in truth.
 
how does the passage in the bible Then the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt and he pursued after the Israelites, although the Israelites were going out boldly. Exodus 14:8 affect this discussion, i wonder?
 
cm25 said:
how does the passage in the bible Then the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt and he pursued after the Israelites, although the Israelites were going out boldly. Exodus 14:8 affect this discussion, i wonder?
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I think it’s just the literary expression used by the writer of the book of Exodus (presumably Moses) to make a point that would be understandable and reasonable to the people of his time. It was Pharaoh who, using his own free will, hardened His own heart. God worked His plans, then, through Pharaoh to save the Israelites. Keep in mind that God is above our way of expressing emotions. However, it is His will that defines right and wrong, justice and mercy.
 
Obviously, if you have the choice to obey God or not, and to follow Jesus or not, than you have to have free will. What sense would it else make. If God had already determined before you were born, whether you are to go to heaven or to hell, then life itself would be worthless.
 
cm25 said:
how does the passage in the bible Then the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt and he pursued after the Israelites, although the Israelites were going out boldly. Exodus 14:8 affect this discussion, i wonder?
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Hardening one’s heart is punishment for fault, it does not come before fault, for it would be unjust to punish one who has not yet sinned. God is said often to withhold grace or harden the hearts of sinners – to “give them up” – in order to punish them more heavily for grevious sins. Sometimes, even to make them reach “rock bottom” and draw them back to himself.

In any case, all hardening is just, for it is a punishment for sin, and even sometimes merciful, since God hardens some to bring them to repentence.
 
Free will and God’s intervention are not mutually exclusive because God does not interfere with our **decisions **but that does not prevent Him from protecting others from the results of our decisions.
 
I don’t see why not. Saint Augustine teaches that our wills are turned to God by His grace, by absolutely no merit of our own. Yet, when we sin and refuse grace, this is of our own doing. This may seem to cause a contradiction, but it does not. We can choose to stop refusing grace, but we only turn to accept grace and faith by God’s prevenient grace. Choosing to stop refusing grace is not equivalent to accepting grace. When we stop refusing grace, our wills are in a “neutral” state. For instance, if I’m moving west, but stop, that does not entail that I move east. In effect, God pushes us in the other direction. God pushes us to accept faith, so that even our acceptance of faith is of His doing only. Yet, we are still free, because ultimately we still had it in our power to make it otherwise.

God does not harden hearts in a strict sense. God allows people to continue to refuse grace. If He wanted, He could force us to accept it, but He doesn’t.
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
Are free will and God’s intervention mutually exclusive?
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No, not unless God starts intervening by moving our limbs around for us and making us do things we don’t choose to do. Actually, even in that situation we would still have free will to choose what we wanted to do, we just wouldn’t be able to physically manifest our decision.
 
Hi. I just happened to see this thread and I don’t think anyone has expressed Thomas Aquinas’ picture, yet, which (as I recall) is one of dual non-competitive causality. Man needs God as ‘first mover’ to will or do anything whatsoever; further, in order to do something morally good, man needs additional grace from God to ‘move the will’. However, says Thomas, this movement does not compete with man’s own efficient causality. I have seen it written that in such cases God acts as a ‘transcendent cause,’ according to Thomas, different in kind from any other cause; man acts as an efficient and proximate cause of his actions, probably. But the medieval discussions are more nuanced than this because of how certain thinkers understand the cognitive powers of man, and the will of man; and there were (and likely are) debates about whether the will and other powers were identical to the soul; and, further, whether they were natural and determinative therefore determinate.
 
Alterum said:
Hi. I just happened to see this thread and I don’t think anyone has expressed Thomas Aquinas’ picture, yet, which (as I recall) is one of dual non-competitive causality. Man needs God as ‘first mover’ to will or do anything whatsoever; further, in order to do something morally good, man needs additional grace from God to ‘move the will’. However, says Thomas, this movement does not compete with man’s own efficient causality. I have seen it written that in such cases God acts as a ‘transcendent cause,’ according to Thomas, different in kind from any other cause; man acts as an efficient and proximate cause of his actions, probably. But the medieval discussions are more nuanced than this because of how certain thinkers understand the cognitive powers of man, and the will of man; and there were (and likely are) debates about whether the will and other powers were identical to the soul; and, further, whether they were natural and determinative therefore determinate.
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I think the explanation I talked about accords with Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine. God is willing to give grace to all. God is the efficient mover of the will, but people are still in control and free insofar as they can actively resist God’s grace. Yet, when they turn away from sin, they are not the direct efficient cause of saving faith. They only become “passive” towards grace, whereas God gives them the “nudge” so to speak. Thus, all grace and salvation is from God alone, even though we cooperate with His grace.

For more info, see Saint Thomas’ Summa Theologica, First part of the Second Part, q.9 art.1 and q.10 art.2.
 
awatkins69 said:
I think the explanation I talked about accords with Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine. God is willing to give grace to all. God is the efficient mover of the will, but people are still in control and free insofar as they can actively resist God’s grace. Yet, when they turn away from sin, they are not the direct efficient cause of saving faith. They only become “passive” towards grace, whereas God gives them the “nudge” so to speak. Thus, all grace and salvation is from God alone, even though we cooperate with His grace.

For more info, see Saint Thomas’ Summa Theologica, First part of the Second Part, q.9 art.1 and q.10 art.2.
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Two very great posts, both by awatkins and alterum.

The greatest explication of St. Thomas’ system of Grace can be found here: ewtn.com/library/Theology/gracegarrlagr.HTM

Basically, as I understand it, there are two graces which God gives man (which are not the same grace, against Molinism): sufficient and efficient grace.

Sufficient grace gives man the power to act, but God, in his eternal decree, permits the man to fall away of his own accord. God is not the cause of the falling away, since he is not the cause of tending to non-being, a characteristic only possible to created beings (this is found all throughout Augustine as well.) God, in his infinite justice, rather permits the defective creature to fail. Again, such permission is not the cause of sin but only its condition. And God is not bound to hold defective causes in a state of perfection. If this were so, no sin would ever occur. We must remember, however, that God has given all such defective causes grace which is sufficient to act, even if it is never applied. (Note – it is not necessary for a cause to move to act to be sufficient to move to act. A person may have the ability of speaking, for instance, or teaching, and not be currently speaking or teaching.) Further, we cannot think that God is unjust in any of the things he does. Indeed, it would be impossible for God to command an impossibility, or to treat man unjustly, or to cause him to sin, since such actions would violate his nature. God can no more be unjust than a contradiction can be true, or darkness light.

The second grace is efficacious grace. It not only gives man sufficient power to act, but moves him to act as well. Man is “free” to resist such grace, since he is potentially outside of the act of goodness to which God is moving him to enact, yet he in fact does not resist, since such grace moves man’s will infallibly.

In such case we can truly say that all good comes from God, and all sin comes from creatures. It is a glorious doctrine when understood, and I think all can say "sola deo gloria. "
 
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