Is our free choice real

[Vico]

Well, looking for excellence is reasonable when you can take advantage of it. What is the use of excellence when you know that you are going to die!?

Well now, they did live eternally as souls. The death was spiritual and physical.

Genesis 2:17 … For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

The word mooth can mean “to die prematurely”.

 

[STT]

Well now, they did live eternally as souls. The death was spiritual and physical.

Genesis 2:17 … For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

The word mooth can mean “to die prematurely”.

So you mean they are God now? How they could be God and souls (dead persons) at the same time?

 

[Vico]

So you mean they are God now? How they could be God and souls (dead persons) at the same time?

They are not God. Human have a immaterial rational soul which not die, but the body dies. Later (at the last judgement) the body is resurrected and united with the soul.

 

[STT]

They are not God. Human have a immaterial rational soul which not die, but the body dies. Later (at the last judgement) the body is resurrected and united with the soul.

But they ate the fruit. What did they gain?

 

[BobCatholic]

newadvent.org/summa/3163.htm

So, it is clear they were not perfect. They had the imperfection of pride. In addition, their desire was 'inordinate" which means they didn’t have the virtue of moderation, which is a missing perfection (imperfection).

 

[Vico]

So, it is clear they were not perfect. They had the imperfection of pride. In addition, their desire was 'inordinate" which means they didn’t have the virtue of moderation, which is a missing perfection (imperfection).

Luke 18:27 He said to them: The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God.

They had the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace and the preternatural gifts including the control over the sensuous passions. Because of the sanctifying grace they had the capability to not sin mortally. It is only by free will choice that they fell.

 

[Vico]

But they ate the fruit. What did they gain?

They had shame for their nakedness and knew that the devil was a liar and that God revealed the truth. Also they learned of the Redeemer. It is the prophecy of the Messiah spoken to the serpent in Genesis 3:15:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her descendants and yours. He will strike at your head, you will strike at his heel.”

 

[BobCatholic]

Luke 18:27 He said to them: The things that are impossible with men, are possible with God.

They had the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace and the preternatural gifts including the control over the sensuous passions. Because of the sanctifying grace they had the capability to not sin mortally. It is only by free will choice that they fell.

Yes, they had preternatural and supernatural gifts. They had the capability to not sin mortally…but for how long? Clearly not long enough! Hence, there was a bug in the software.

QA Diagnosis: perfection was not one of those gifts.

They were imperfect, even Aquinas says they had the imperfection of pride. I suspect they had the imperfections of stupidity, naivete and fear.

Buggy software crashed. They got the Universe’s Blue Screen of Death.

Tell me, what was the difference between Adam and Eve pre-fall, and the Angels who passed the trial and are now blessed by God? I say there is a big difference.

The Angels are perfect. There was none of this “here’s some gifts that are easily lost” - their gifts are there and can’t be taken away, nor lost. The Angels will not turn around and sin, they don’t want to, they have no inkling of desire to. This perfection was missing from Adam and Eve.

This key piece of code was missing from the software for Adam and Eve, and thus the software crashed.

My problem is that I can’t tell how free Adam and Eve’s wills were. I can’t even tell how free my own will is, with me having 500,000 more imperfections.

Saying they had free will without taking into account their buggy software, is just not seeing the whole picture.

 

[BobCatholic]

They had shame for their nakedness and knew that the devil was a liar and that God revealed the truth.

I see the “shame” part like this.

Imagine a six year old boy and six year old girl. They see each other naked. What runs through their minds? They’re innocent so nothing shameful.

Now imagine a sixteen year old boy and sixteen year old girl. They see each other naked. What runs through their minds? Yeah. You know. Rated R through X thoughts.

So, pre-fall, Adam and Eve were able to look at each other with love and innocence, though they were naked. They were able to be naked in front of each other and be comfortable with each other despite being naked.

After the fall, they saw each other in a Rated R through X manner, and were no longer comfortable being naked with each other. Being naked is vulnerable, and they didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of each other. But they’re just fig leaves. Not much covering up.

That’s the shame, they had.

 

[Vico]

Yes, they had preternatural and supernatural gifts. They had the capability to not sin mortally…but for how long? Clearly not long enough! Hence, there was a bug in the software.

QA Diagnosis: perfection was not one of those gifts.

They were imperfect, even Aquinas says they had the imperfection of pride. I suspect they had the imperfections of stupidity, naivete and fear.

Buggy software crashed. They got the Universe’s Blue Screen of Death.

Tell me, what was the difference between Adam and Eve pre-fall, and the Angels who passed the trial and are now blessed by God? I say there is a big difference.

The Angels are perfect. There was none of this “here’s some gifts that are easily lost” - their gifts are there and can’t be taken away, nor lost. The Angels will not turn around and sin, they don’t want to, they have no inkling of desire to. This perfection was missing from Adam and Eve.

This key piece of code was missing from the software for Adam and Eve, and thus the software crashed.

My problem is that I can’t tell how free Adam and Eve’s wills were. I can’t even tell how free my own will is, with me having 500,000 more imperfections.

Saying they had free will without taking into account their buggy software, is just not seeing the whole picture.

The gift of supernatural grace is sufficient, so they had the capacity to remain free of mortal sin for eternity. For them to be held responsible, as one is in mortal sin, there has to be an exercise of free will. It is a dogma of faith that the supernatural grace is sufficient.

 

[Vico]

I see the “shame” part like this.

Imagine a six year old boy and six year old girl. They see each other naked. What runs through their minds? They’re innocent so nothing shameful.

Now imagine a sixteen year old boy and sixteen year old girl. They see each other naked. What runs through their minds? Yeah. You know. Rated R through X thoughts.

So, pre-fall, Adam and Eve were able to look at each other with love and innocence, though they were naked. They were able to be naked in front of each other and be comfortable with each other despite being naked.

After the fall, they saw each other in a Rated R through X manner, and were no longer comfortable being naked with each other. Being naked is vulnerable, and they didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of each other. But they’re just fig leaves. Not much covering up.

That’s the shame, they had.

So Adam and Eve were, before their sin, clothed with the glory of God and didn’t need natural clothing. Once they sinned, that glory was gone and they found themselves naked and afraid.

 

[BobCatholic]

The gift of supernatural grace is sufficient, so they had the capacity to remain free of mortal sin for eternity. For them to be held responsible, as one is in mortal sin, there has to be an exercise of free will. It is a dogma of faith that the supernatural grace is sufficient.

The problem is that Supernatural Grace doesn’t seem to conquer concupiscence. One can receive grace and fall from grace. It doesn’t make it easier to avoid sin.

It is ridiculously easy to fall from grace, it is horrendously difficult to stay there due to concupiscence. God’s grace is fragile and very easy to lose.

In other words, the software is still buggy, grace hasn’t fixed the bug.

I don’t think that is the definition of sufficient, that’s the definition of “begrudgingly providing the bare minimum” Scripture says where sin abounds, grace abounds the more. This tells me that grace is supposed to be not just sufficient, but plentiful and one’s cup is overflowing.

That doesn’t seem to fit my experience. Concupiscence is still there and bullying people into submission.

So Adam and Eve were, before their sin, clothed with the glory of God and didn’t need natural clothing. Once they sinned, that glory was gone and they found themselves naked and afraid.

That’s another good way of looking at it.

 

[Vico]

The problem is that Supernatural Grace doesn’t seem to conquer concupiscence. One can receive grace and fall from grace. It doesn’t make it easier to avoid sin.

It is ridiculously easy to fall from grace, it is horrendously difficult to stay there due to concupiscence. God’s grace is fragile and very easy to lose.

In other words, the software is still buggy, grace hasn’t fixed the bug.

I don’t think that is the definition of sufficient, that’s the definition of “begrudgingly providing the bare minimum” Scripture says where sin abounds, grace abounds the more. This tells me that grace is supposed to be not just sufficient, but plentiful and one’s cup is overflowing.

That doesn’t seem to fit my experience. Concupiscence is still there and bullying people into submission.

That’s another good way of looking at it.

Catholic Encyclopedia has something to help understand the topic that Adam and Eve were free from concupiscence, but we are not:

The first parents were free from concupiscence, so that their sensuous appetite was perfectly subject to reason; and this freedom they were to transmit to posterity provided they observed the commandment of God. A short but important statement of the Catholic doctrine on this point may be quoted from Peter the Deacon, a Greek, who was sent to Rome to bear witness to the Faith of the East:

“Our belief is that Adam came from the hands of his Creator good and free from the assaults of the flesh” (Lib. de Incarn., c. vi). In our first parents, however, this complete dominion of reason over appetite was no natural perfection or acquirement, but a preternatural gift of God, that is, a gift not due to human nature; nor was it, on the other hand, the essence of their original justice, which consisted in sanctifying grace; it was but a complement added to the latter by the Divine bounty. By the sin of Adam freedom from concupiscence was forfeited not only for himself, but also for all his posterity with the exception of the Blessed Virgin by special privilege. Human nature was deprived of both its preternatural and supernatural gifts and graces, the lower appetite began to lust against the spirit, and evil habits, contracted by personal sins, wrought disorder in the body, obscured the mind, and weakened the power of the will, without, however, destroying its freedom. Hence that lamentable condition of which St. Paul complains when he writes:

I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:21-25)​

Also, it is only our by our free will that mortal sin occurs through the temptations of concupiesence.

From the explanation given, it is plain that the opposition between appetite and reason is natural in man, and that, though it be an imperfection, it is not a corruption of human nature. Nor have the inordinate desires (actual concupiscence) or the proneness to them (habitual concupiscence) the nature of sin; for sin, being the free and deliberate transgression of the law of God, can be only in the rational will; though it be true that they are temptations to sin, becoming the stronger and the more frequent the oftener they have been indulged. As thus far considered they are only sinful objects and antecedent causes of sinful transgressions; they contract the malice of sin only when consent is given by the will; not as though their nature were changed, but because they are adopted and completed by the will and so share its malice. Hence the distinction of concupiscence antecedent and concupiscence consequent to the consent of the will; the latter is sinful, the former is not.

Ming, J. (1908). Concupiscence. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm

A definition of Sufficient Grace from Modern Catholic Dictionary may help:

Actual grace considered apart from the supernatural effect for which it was bestowed. It may therefore mean the grace that does not meet with adequate co-operation on the part of the human recipient, and then it is merely sufficient grace. It is enough to enable a person to perform a salutary act, but who freely declines to co-operate. Or it may simply mean the grace that gives one the power to accomplish a salutary action, as distinct from an efficacious grace, which secures that the salutary act is accomplished.

 

[BobCatholic]

The first parents were free from concupiscence, so that their sensuous appetite was perfectly subject to reason;

OK, so they had that perfection. However, they WERE tempted and FAILED. That shows that reason was short circuited by something. This “something” is what I call an imperfection.

Whether that something is fear, naievete, stupidity, or pride, there was an imperfection present. That was a bad piece of code that caused the software to crash.

A definition of Sufficient Grace from Modern Catholic Dictionary may help:

Actual grace considered apart from the supernatural effect for which it was bestowed. It may therefore mean the grace that does not meet with adequate co-operation on the part of the human recipient, and then it is merely sufficient grace. It is enough to enable a person to perform a salutary act, but who freely declines to co-operate. Or it may simply mean the grace that gives one the power to accomplish a salutary action, as distinct from an efficacious grace, which secures that the salutary act is accomplished.

OK, so God provides “sufficient” versus “efficacious” grace to overcome concupiscence. How do I get this efficacious grace? Asking doesn’t work. I still have concupiscence.

 

[STT]

OK, so they had that perfection. However, they WERE tempted and FAILED. That shows that reason was short circuited by something. This “something” is what I call an imperfection.

Whether that something is fear, naievete, stupidity, or pride, there was an imperfection present. That was a bad piece of code that caused the software to crash.

Actually, I think you are right on your observation. You are either perfect like Jesus and can resist sin or you are not perfect like me and you so we cannot resist sin. Adam and Eve perform sin hence they were not perfect. I don’t really understand the Church’s teaching on this topic.

 

[Vico]

OK, so they had that perfection. However, they WERE tempted and FAILED. That shows that reason was short circuited by something. This “something” is what I call an imperfection.

Whether that something is fear, naievete, stupidity, or pride, there was an imperfection present. That was a bad piece of code that caused the software to crash.

OK, so God provides “sufficient” versus “efficacious” grace to overcome concupiscence. How do I get this efficacious grace? Asking doesn’t work. I still have concupiscence.

God gives the free will, so gives the ability to fail. You are calling that “bad code”. Without free will there can be no expression of love by man.

Concupiscence will remain, it is the temptation. What a person must provide is the** consent** which with the grace that is given by God, will overcome the concupiscence. When a person cooperates then the grace is called efficacious, when not, it is called sufficient.

Then there are errors without culpability and with culpability.

St. Augustine was quoted at the Council of Trent, (Denz., no. 804).God does not command the impossible, but by commanding He teaches thee both to do what thou canst and to ask what thou canst not, and He helps thee that thou mayest be able”

From Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, Chapter Seven by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P

As in the natural order divine motion arouses in plants the vital processes by which they spontaneously flower and fructify, so in the supernatural order efficacious grace arouses in us, not only a spontaneous love of happiness, but the love of God; and this love is free, since God is not yet clearly seen and does not yet attract us invincibly. Efficacious grace thus properly moves toward this act specified by a good which does not attract irresistibly, and in so moving toward this act it does not change its nature, which depends on its own objective specification. Thus it does not destroy, but actualizes our liberty and free mode, a mode which is real beyond question, which can be produced in us and with us by the supreme creative cause, which from on high “pours forth all being and every modality of being,” excepting only evil-doing.6

6 Malice is outside of the adequate object of divine omnipotence, and God cannot produce it if He will; on the contrary, the free mode of our choice is a mode of being and not outside the adequate object of God’s power, which is the cause of being inasmuch as it is being and also of its modality. If, on the other hand, God did not predetermine, He would be determined in His knowledge by our consent through foreseen mediate knowledge.

Thus it is through efficacious grace that the prayers of the saints are heard: “Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels” (Ps. 50:12). This is best understood by the mystics, and all the more in proportion to the intimacy of their union with God7.7 St. Nicholas de Flue, known in Switzerland as the “Father of his country,” prayed thus: “My Lord and my God, take away from me whatever withdraws me from Thee; give me whatever leads me to Thee; take me away from myself and give me wholly unto Thee, that I may be wholly Thine.” This is a very beautiful expression of the efficacy of grace in the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways.​

ewtn.com/library/Theology/grace7.htm

 

[BobCatholic]

I don’t really understand the Church’s teaching on this topic.

The Church’s teaching is that Adam and Eve had preternatural gifts - these are gifts we currently do not have. Despite being superior human beings, they still fell. Catholic Teaching doesn’t usually go into the reasons why they fell.

My theory deals with the why:it is that they were created imperfect. They had one or more of the following imperfections: fear, pride, naivete, or stupidity.

Because of their imperfections, that impacted how they made their bad choice to sin.

Mark Shea says “Sin makes you stupid” - Adam & Eve prove that out.

 

[Vico]

The Church’s teaching is that Adam and Eve had preternatural gifts - these are gifts we currently do not have. Despite being superior human beings, they still fell. Catholic Teaching doesn’t usually go into the reasons why they fell.

My theory deals with the why:it is that they were created imperfect. They had one or more of the following imperfections: fear, pride, naivete, or stupidity.

Because of their imperfections, that impacted how they made their bad choice to sin.

Mark Shea says “Sin makes you stupid” - Adam & Eve prove that out.

Yet, because they had those gifts to compensate for natural state, and could choose correctly but did not, they bear the responsibility, and we inherit it.

 

[BobCatholic]

Yet, because they had those gifts to compensate for natural state, and could choose correctly but did not, they bear the responsibility, and we inherit it.

They bear the responsibility, but we are held temporally responsible.

 

[Vico]

They bear the responsibility, but we are held temporally responsible.

And that is a mystery, Catechism

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? the whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”. 293 [St. Thomas Aquinas, De malo 4, I.] By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. 294 [Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1511-1512] It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. and that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.