Is ignorance necessary for free will?

[STT]

The verses only go to show that we know Satan and his demons exist and that somehow they fell out of grace with God.

Somehow cannot justify a story with serious logical issues.

Heaven is a place of joy of being with God. If you don’t want to be with God then it wouldn’t be a pleasant place to be.

Well, then one must prefer misery and pain if it does not prefer joy. Is that logical to you? The being then must be masochist. Is that how the creation God is?

Obedience in general was obviously not the problem, obedience to God was.

Why? You must have a good reason for that considering the fact the state of Heaven is the state of joy and harmony.

 

[STT]

Heaven is transcendent to the illusions and transient experiences that distract and lead us astray from the destiny that God wills for us - joyous communion through the giving of ourselves to what is other. This is very different from pleasure. What Satan and his followers rebelled against might be best expressed by the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3-10

Beatitude is a state of goodness, complete fulfillment. There is no want.

Sin ends up in the opposite state of misery.

The world offers:

• pleasures that end, typically in pain,
• things that break or, if they don’t, they end up in someone else’s possession,
• the illusion of power, when it belongs to death, borrowed until it comes for us,
• honour and fame, dissolving in a nature where only bones and remnants remain of what was once vital and alive.

At the Ground of our being is Love. As a result Reality is topsy turvy to what we experience in our fallen state. The greatest among us is the servant of all, the one who gives his life that others may live.

In contrast, look how powerful Satan is in this world. He is behind the elevation and fall of each and every tyrant who calls on his power to control and rule. It’s a long sordid story.

If you want to get to the bottom of this, it’s going to take time and effort. Hope this helps.

So a brief statement of your opinion is that Satan rebelled considering the fact that It was in the state of Beatitude. Is that rational to you considering the fact that Satan is extremely intellectual and rational?

 

[seagal]

Somehow cannot justify a story with serious logical issues.

As I said before, we don’t know exactly what happened, we only know that it did happen.

Well, then one must prefer misery and pain if it does not prefer joy. Is that logical to you? The being then must be masochist. Is that how the creation God is?

Not necessarily. The being in question must prefer having his own way to God’s way, so much so that it would be willing to leave everything good. I’ve known people like this, it isn’t so farfetched.

Why? You must have a good reason for that considering the fact the state of Heaven is the state of joy and harmony.

You said the fallen ones, having chosen to follow Satan, would still have to obey him. I responded that obviously they didn’t have a problem with obedience, just a problem with obedience to God.

This article on CatholicAnswers might answer some of your questions.
If you’re up to a more in depth treatment of this topic, you can read this article in the New Advent Encyclopedia. It’s a little hard to slog through but it does take you through the thought processes of theologians over the centuries who tried to sort through this mystery.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Does knowing that strawberries taste better than grapefruit influence my free will eating choices? Under the assumption that we all wish to choose what we think is good then having a knowledge of what is good doesn’t limit my freedom because I still could choose the bad, but it does influence me to choose one choice over another. Rather than being a negative influence though, as if I were being limited in my options, it is part of the decision making process, because after all, part of deciding is to limit your options to the one you want to choose. And, at the end of the day it is still you who chose it.

There is something to going through this discernment and discovery process ourselves. We discover it for ourselves and thus it becomes part of us in a deeper way. If everything was simply dumped on us externally such that knowledge was like infused into us then we wouldn’t have this discovery process. If God was more apparent to all people we would lose this discovery process.

There is no way because of our limitations that we could have all knowledge. Thus, we would have to be ignorant to certain aspects of reality by design. There is no way to know how those hidden aspects would affect us if they were more apparent. Since we are material beings it makes sense that our world would be largely material and follow physical laws. Since God is pure spirit there is no reason to think we would be able to naturally perceive him. Kind of like how it would be difficult for the characters of a novel to perceive their author. However, we can discover his existence through the things he has made and through the history of his interaction with his creation. We can enter into a relationship with him through prayer and following him.

A loss of freedom means we are being forced into one decision or another regardless of what our will to choose is. Having knowledge of the available options does not limit me, but instead enables me to make an informed decision. It doesn’t take away my options or force me against my will into a decision. Now, being overwhelmed by something is entirely different. If God is the reward for a godly life then it would not make sense to give us that reward until we have lived a godly life. Yet in the garden, before the fall, it says that God walked with man. And we been trying to get back to the garden ever since.

 

[goout]

Does knowing that strawberries taste better than grapefruit influence my free will eating choices? Under the assumption that we all wish to choose what we think is good then having a knowledge of what is good doesn’t limit my freedom because I still could choose the bad, but it does influence me to choose one choice over another. Rather than being a negative influence though, as if I were being limited in my options, it is part of the decision making process, because after all, part of deciding is to limit your options to the one you want to choose. And, at the end of the day it is still you who chose it.

There is something to going through this discernment and discovery process ourselves. We discover it for ourselves and thus it becomes part of us in a deeper way. If everything was simply dumped on us externally such that knowledge was like infused into us then we wouldn’t have this discovery process. If God was more apparent to all people we would lose this discovery process.

There is no way because of our limitations that we could have all knowledge. Thus, we would have to be ignorant to certain aspects of reality by design. There is no way to know how those hidden aspects would affect us if they were more apparent. Since we are material beings it makes sense that our world would be largely material and follow physical laws. Since God is pure spirit there is no reason to think we would be able to naturally perceive him. Kind of like how it would be difficult for the characters of a novel to perceive their author. However, we can discover his existence through the things he has made and through the history of his interaction with his creation. We can enter into a relationship with him through prayer and following him.

We are creatures (until science proves me wrong ), so omniscience cannot be proper to any of us.
Ignorance is part of the fun. Too bad it has such a negative connotation.