Problem with free will

[blase6]

I have some problems with the logic regarding the Catholic definition of free will that has made it hard to accept. It is hard for me to put into words, but it seems like free will contradicts God’s omnipotence and omniscience. One argument was that because God knows all that we will do, we cannot change the future. The argument against that was that God sees what you will do but does not cause you to make decisions. So I will not use that argument.

My reasoning was this: Say that on a specific point of time in the history of the universe you have the decision to buy a large coffee or a small coffee. According to free will, you are not entirely bound by motives which will ultimately determine which coffee you will buy. By choosing either, you are making it reality that you bought one, and falsifying that you bought the other. So ultimately, despite a possibly infinite list of options for you to act in that point of time and regard, there is only one real choice that was made, and all other options are now impossible. You could take the (maybe) infinite list of choices you could ever make at any time in your life, and in every instance there is only one reality. God knows this reality and placed you in your life with this knowledge, but still you have the freedom to choose. So in this way, it seems like free will supposes that God has given us the power to change the ultimate reality of the universe, something which seems to me that only God should have the power for. And it just sounds logically absurd.

 

[bisco]

huh?

 

[Amandil]

I have some problems with the logic regarding the Catholic definition of free will that has made it hard to accept. It is hard for me to put into words, but it seems like free will contradicts God’s omnipotence and omniscience. One argument was that because God knows all that we will do, we cannot change the future. The argument against that was that God sees what you will do but does not cause you to make decisions. So I will not use that argument.

My reasoning was this: Say that on a specific point of time in the history of the universe you have the decision to buy a large coffee or a small coffee. According to free will, you are not entirely bound by motives which will ultimately determine which coffee you will buy.

But you are bound by the appetite of your will towards that particular object which the will desires: coffee.

Nevertheless you are not bound by necessity to drink coffee at that point, its simply something your will desires.

By choosing either, you are making it reality that you bought one, and falsifying that you bought the other. So ultimately, despite a possibly infinite list of options for you to act in that point of time and regard, there is only one real choice that was made, and all other options are now impossible. You could take the (maybe) infinite list of choices you could ever make at any time in your life, and in every instance there is only one reality. God knows this reality and placed you in your life with this knowledge, but still you have the freedom to choose.

Up to this point you’re fine.

So in this way, it seems like free will supposes that God has given us the power to change the ultimate reality of the universe, something which seems to me that only God should have the power for. And it just sounds logically absurd.

This is where it falls apart. God has given us the power, not to “change the ultimate reality of the universe”, but to cooperate with Him in ministering to it. All of our free choices are coordinated into God’s providential plan for the universe, therefore there is nothing that we do which would frustrate or negate His plan. We have no power in ourselves, all power we have is bestowed upon us by God. And everything man does, even the most vile atrocities, is in the end only tributary and in the end works towards God’s glory.

 

[blase6]

This is where it falls apart. God has given us the power, not to “change the ultimate reality of the universe”, but to cooperate with Him in ministering to it. All of our free choices are coordinated into God’s providential plan for the universe, therefore there is nothing that we do which would frustrate or negate His plan. We have no power in ourselves, all power we have is bestowed upon us by God. And everything man does, even the most vile atrocities, is in the end only tributary and in the end works towards God’s glory.

I don’t entirely understand what you mean by “cooperate with Him in ministering to it.” I think either you mean that God shares some power in determining the course of events in the world, which I already had a problem with, or it sounds like you are saying that we don’t have any power at all. And the whole idea of God having a “master plan” for the universe makes it even more difficult to accept free will. Sorry, I just don’t see much substance in your argument.

 

[oldcelt]

I don’t entirely understand what you mean by “cooperate with Him in ministering to it.” I think either you mean that God shares some power in determining the course of events in the world, which I already had a problem with, or it sounds like you are saying that we don’t have any power at all. And the whole idea of God having a “master plan” for the universe makes it even more difficult to accept free will. Sorry, I just don’t see much substance in your argument.

That is because free will combined with a plan by an all-knowing, all-powerful deity with a plan is meaningless. All that arrangement achieves is slavery on a cosmic scale. However, don’t expect to gain any ground with those who hold the opinions you read above.

 

[Amandil]

blase6:

I don’t entirely understand what you mean by “cooperate with Him in ministering to it.” I think either you mean that God shares some power in determining the course of events in the world, which I already had a problem with, or it sounds like you are saying that we don’t have any power at all.

God delegates power to us, but we have no power to thwart His will.

For an act to be free does not mean to be “free from all external influence”. The freedom of an act is directly related to the good. IOW an act is only free so long as it is directed towards the good(the highest good being universal).

In terms of power we have power over our freedom and ourselves so long as we do the good.

When we sin we abuse our freedom, thus we hand away whatever power God grants us over to some other thing which is less than ourselves.

blase6:

And the whole idea of God having a “master plan” for the universe makes it even more difficult to accept free will. Sorry, I just don’t see much substance in your argument.

His providential plan necessarily includes our free decisions.

Our prayers today are one of the innumerable coordinates by which God harmonizes , say, the weather of tomorrow. When it rains you will then say two things: 1) that men did not freely pray but were predestined to do so and 2) you will look back at the meteorological data and see the material causes which lead to it raining and say that the whole thing was given, “it would have happened anyway.”

What you ought to say, of course, is that the problem of adapting the particular weather to the particular prayers is merely the appearance, at two points in your temporal mode of perception, of the total problem of adapting the whole spiritual universe to the whole corporeal universe; that creation in its entirety operates at every point of space and time, or rather that their kind of consciousness forces them to encounter the whole, self-consistent creative act as a series of successive events.

How it does so is no problem at all; for God does not foresee the humans making their free contributions in a future, but sees them doing so in His unbounded Now. And obviously to watch a man doing something is not to make him do it.

Thus you drinking coffee is necessarily a free act, the result of either His active or permissive will.

 

[DelsonJacobs]

I have some problems with the logic regarding the Catholic definition of free will that has made it hard to accept. It is hard for me to put into words, but it seems like free will contradicts God’s omnipotence and omniscience. One argument was that because God knows all that we will do, we cannot change the future. The argument against that was that God sees what you will do but does not cause you to make decisions. So I will not use that argument.

My reasoning was this: Say that on a specific point of time in the history of the universe you have the decision to buy a large coffee or a small coffee. According to free will, you are not entirely bound by motives which will ultimately determine which coffee you will buy. By choosing either, you are making it reality that you bought one, and falsifying that you bought the other. So ultimately, despite a possibly infinite list of options for you to act in that point of time and regard, there is only one real choice that was made, and all other options are now impossible. You could take the (maybe) infinite list of choices you could ever make at any time in your life, and in every instance there is only one reality. God knows this reality and placed you in your life with this knowledge, but still you have the freedom to choose. So in this way, it seems like free will supposes that God has given us the power to change the ultimate reality of the universe, something which seems to me that only God should have the power for. And it just sounds logically absurd.

Yet in a sense our choices do shape the universe we live in. Apparently that is what God intended. It’s just that these choices have limited effects for now and do not change the fact that for us history will unfold.

Free will is lived out in the temporal dimension where time plays a factor. But events of past, present, and future are not played out from God’s point of view because God transcends time. Like the letters of this sentence, all that history holds is present before God at one and the same time. The free will choices of past and now are, in this sense, just as present as your free choices of tomorrow are to God.

In this sense God does not actually look into the future to see what our actions will be nor does he program these events. The future isn’t something God has to peer into or conjure up because it is as present to him as the now and yesterday. (2 Peter 3:8) When God “foretells” the future he is talking about how things can or will unfold from his vantage point. Things are not necessarily written in stone however because in Genesis God told Cain there were two courses his future could take. It was not inevitable that he murder his brother, even though this was the free choice Cain would eventually make.–See Genesis 4:6-7.

So it’s obviously more complicated than just one choice or another that God can see on the history line. He probably sees the various possibilities you are mentioning, though the “unlimited” possibilities are probably not as unlimited as one might think.

God did not place you or anyone in their life in order to fulfill what God sees in the timeline, so to speak. God sees in the future what freely plays out by us in history (unless he claims direct responsibility for an event such as in the Virgin Birth). Unless our choice of coffee, as you put it, is important enough for God to act within the scope of history to change, our choice of coffee is our choice. Like Cain’s choice it is not written in stone.

Just as God planned for Adam and Eve to care for the Garden of Eden and likely expand its borders as this human couple saw fit, God wants us to share in his governing of the universe. This means your choices are supposed to be free and have an effect on the world around you because, let’s face it, that’s what he created our plane of existence for.

Eventually humans will rule in heaven with Christ and share this aspect of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4) So great will our choices be that “we will judge angels.” (1 Corinthians 6:3) These free choices of our future will affect more than what we do now by our limited earthly choices. These will effect eternity! So obviously God wants us to share in his shaping of the universe and eternity.

 

[Bradski]

I have some problems with the logic regarding the Catholic definition of free will that has made it hard to accept. It is hard for me to put into words…

Hard to get ones head around as well.

But if free will exists (my jury is still out), then I don’t see it contradicting God’s omniscience. You could to decide freely to buy the coffee or not. The fact that God knows/did know/will know what decision you make/did make/will make doesn’t force your hand, so to speak.

The fact that we can’t even discuss it without a confusing array of tenses just shows that it is not a concept that we have the means to understand.

Try looking at it like this. A conjurer asks you to pick a card. You do so with free will, there is no way he would know what you were going to pick. But he tells you the exact card after you have chosen. It seemed like he knew all along, yet you made a free choice.

OK, it’s a trick. In God’s case, if you believe in Him, then just accept that it isn’t a trick. He just knows.

 

[Filia_Secunda]

He knows which coffee you’ll choose, but you’re still the one who chooses it. And if you had chosen the other instead, then that would have been the ultimate reality, and that would be what He had known.

An incidental detail - God lives in eternity, not in time; which, if I remember right, means that all times are present to Him. So if He always knows which coffee you’ll buy - which of course He does - it still isn’t predestination.

And another - when you’re ordering the coffee, does it not seem exactly as if you just chose it? Why would you think you were choosing, if your every thought and movement was put in its place by someone else? Why would you think in the first place? It looks like the beginning of solipsism to me - that is, the idea that everything you perceive might be an illusion, and that nothing’s certain except your own existence.

Why would God give us the illusion that we choose, if we never do? He wouldn’t, if He is all-good and all-truthful. Though then again, I don’t know whether you believe that He is.

Sorry if this didn’t make sense. . . .

 

[bisco]

makes complete sense! unlike the o/p, the deist and the atheist. although, the atheist made more sense than the other two.

 

[polytropos]

There are two dilemmas.

One is between human freedom and divine foreknowledge. If God knows now what I will do in the future, don’t I have to do it?

The other is between human freedom and divine causality. If God is the ultimate cause of everything, including my free decisions, how can I be free?

Both of these are stated in simplistic and naive terms; neither constitutes a valid argument, and when other premises are spelled out, certain moves are contestable. These are two complicated issues, and I think an appropriate resolution will inevitably be very technical.

In my view, the first dilemma can be resolved by clarifying God’s eternity and the nature of his knowledge. I will try to be brief. First, if God is eternal, ie. outside of time, then God does not know things “now” but eternally–so there is no inference from God’s knowledge to a determination that I behave in a certain way later. Second, by divine simplicity, God’s knowledge is related to God’s will and causality. God wills his own goodness necessarily–but nothing else but his absolute goodness can necessitate his will. So all contingent goods, like the creation of the world, are willed by God contingently, and God knows them contingently. So God has a single intellective act and a single will that is identical in all possible worlds because its identity conditions are given by his knowing of his own essence and his willing of his own goodness; but what he knows and wills of creation is contingent. (So the first issue blocks the inference that would deny our freedom, while this second gives a brief, sketchy explanation of why we should not expect our acts to be necessitated.)

(Molinism is another proposal to solve the first dilemma. Molinism is the idea that God knows conditionals/counterfactuals about future contingents, ie. “In x circumstances, this person will freely choose to do y.” I am not really familiar with Molinism. I think there may be some problems with it, although I am not certain. For example, counterfactuals are standardly analyzed in terms of what occurs in “the closest possible world in which the antecedent is true,” but prior to God’s creation there is no actual world and therefore no relativised possible worlds. Another issue is that it takes free behavior to be primitive, which I don’t find wholly objectionable, but is not hugely satisfying. However, perhaps it is appropriate given the brief analysis of free behavior I give below. In any case, I think Molinism would be unnecessary if the first dilemma can be resolved with a simpler eternity-based solution.)

With regard to the second dilemma, it is related to another: God is the First Cause, but human beings, since they behave freely, are also said to be first causes. The dilemma can be resolved by providing an account of the difference between God qua First Cause and humans qua first causes, which is really to give an explanation of the interplay between intellect and will. I don’t think I can really do that in a forum post, but the intellect is the formal and final cause of the will (providing the will with goods-as-perceived). However, because the objects of the intellect are universals (abstracted forms), while the will acts to obtain particular goods, the causality of the intellect does not determine the will. So the intellect is not the efficient cause of the will, but presents the objects of the will. The efficient cause of the will is God (ultimately, at least–proximately, the will may also be caused by other acts of will, for instance), but this does not determine what the will aims at. (The will can also efficiently cause deliberation about ends and means by the intellect. In this sense, we freely can come to conclusions about how we are to act.)

 

[blase6]

If God were to give a person absolute knowledge of all the choices he would ever make, then at least in a sense, that person’s freedom would be ended, because they would always make the choice that would necessarily happen in the future, without the possibility of other choices. Unless of course God gave the person a glimpse of what the future would be like if they made a wrong choice, in which case it is not foreknowledge of the certain future.

It is also difficult to accept that God has free will. If God’s goodness necessitates his will always choosing to bring about the greatest good(not sure if this is doctrine or not, but it is reasonable) He is incapable of choosing otherwise. If our wills are too, necessarily ordered to the good, or something that appears good, it seems to contradict the definition of free will, “to do as we wish.”

 

[bisco]

why do so many catholics say, ‘in my view’?

 

[DelsonJacobs]

why do so many catholics say, ‘in my view’?

Each person would have to explain what they personally mean when employing the term.

They could be saying this to introduce a personal opinion on the matter.

They could also be introducing their understanding of a view or matter which is formally accepted either by scholars, members of academia, or the Church itself.

And it could merely be the use of an idiomatic phrase which calls attention to the writer’s acknowledgment of their limitations.

There are probably a myriad of other possible reasons to add to this list, so it would be best to ask each poster what they meant by the use of this phrase in their particular circumstances.

 

[bisco]

thank you.

 

[Vico]

… So in this way, it seems like free will supposes that God has given us the power to change the ultimate reality of the universe, something which seems to me that only God should have the power for. And it just sounds logically absurd.

You begin with: “God has given us…” so God has delegated some* limited* power to us. St. Irenaeus said: For He who makes the chaff and He who makes the wheat are not different persons, but one and the same, who judges them, that is, separates them. But the wheat and the chaff, being inanimate and irrational, have been made such by nature. But man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect like to God, having been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff. Wherefore also he shall be justly condemned, because, having been created a rational being, he lost the true rationality, and living irrationally, opposed the righteousness of God, giving himself over to every earthly spirit, and serving all lusts; as says the prophet, Man, being in honour, did not understand: he was assimilated to senseless beasts, and made like to them.

Against Heresies (St. Irenaeus)
newadvent.org/fathers/0103404.htm

 

[Amandil]

If God were to give a person absolute knowledge of all the choices he would ever make, then at least in a sense, that person’s freedom would be ended, because they would always make the choice that would necessarily happen in the future, without the possibility of other choices. Unless of course God gave the person a glimpse of what the future would be like if they made a wrong choice, in which case it is not foreknowledge of the certain future.

It is also difficult to accept that God has free will. If God’s goodness necessitates his will always choosing to bring about the greatest good(not sure if this is doctrine or not, but it is reasonable) He is incapable of choosing otherwise. If our wills are too, necessarily ordered to the good, or something that appears good, it seems to contradict the definition of free will, “to do as we wish.”

The definition you are using is not the definition of free will.

It is the definition of “license.”

 

[ynotzap]

God is not ignorant that He has to choose, God wills, He is omniscient, Omnipresent, omnipotent, infallible, infinite, Pure being, and Pure act. God is not like us, except in Jesus Christ who took on our human nature except for sin, yet He is a Divine person. He is not like us in His Divine Nature, why would He have to choose? Because He is ignorant not knowing a lesser good from a greater good, We do wrong by humanizing God, He is Divine. We do not apply to Him what we apply to ourselves,

You either choose the large or small cup of coffee to satisfy what you desired for yourself. You could choose the smaller cup because a large one was to filling, and too much caffene eg.
Or you could choose the larger one because you needed more to wake you up with more caffene, or because you wanted to taste the flavor more, these choices were made depending on which good you desired at the time. You had the freedom to make the choice, and the choice gave you a temporal satisfaction.

God on the other hand, is subsistent, sufficient unto Himself and needs no other good, for He is goodness, So why would He have to make a choice? He is satisfied with Himself, His will is one with Himself God is His attributes, we are not. Our wills are not satisfied or satiated and we keep making choices that we think will satisfy us–a large cup of coffee or a small one. There are created goods, the goods of this world, and there is the uncreated Good . What choice shall we make, a temporal good or an Eternal Good. God does not force us to choose Him. This truth is very evident in human behavior, and it wouldn’t be so if we didn’t have free will. We have freedom to choose and our choices depend on what we desire. God will enforce our choices, and just because He knows what we will choose does not mean we have no freedom of choice. He is omniscient because He is God. God does not make a choice, He wills.’ Let there be light, and there was light’

 

[oldcelt]

why do so many catholics say, ‘in my view’?

Acknowledging that something is one’s belief, rather than irrefutable fact, helps to clarify the discussion. I am as guilty as the next of forgetting to point out my personal beliefs on a subject (faith, truth) versus fact.

I’m working on that…just one point on a very long list.

 

[bisco]

i accept all church teaching, although i realize that not everything is defined, it seems so many discussions here center around church doctrine. and not just from non catholics.