The Mystery of Free Will

[CentralFLJames]

It seems to me that misuse of free will is what most gets humanity in trouble and how we use it lands one either in hell or heaven. Given that we must choose wisely in light of eternity it seems freewill is somthing many of us might want to give up if we had guarantees our will would be conformed to God’s.

It occurred to me that if one could surrender their will and always conform it to Christ then no one would ever go to hell. Taking it a step further I wondered what might have happened if in Eden God had planted one more tree called “The Tree of God’s Will”. This tree has a fruit that one can choose to eat of freely one time and after doing so one would elect to give up free will forever in exchange for the right to live in paradisaical bless forever without fear of ever using free will to displease God (making the tree of Good and Evil never an actionable choice).

In other words if man could use his gift of free will one final time to choose to give up that gift in exchange for the certitude of perpetual paradise and never going to hell would he choose to partake of this fruit over the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?

What would you do if given such a choice?

James
p.s. Could democracy vote to undo itself into Communism?

 

[davidv]

I didn’t vote because I couln’t agree with any of the options. If I understand heaven correctly, it cannot exist unless I can freely choose to love. So, eliminating the freedom to choose, eliminates heaven.

 

[CentralFLJames]

I didn’t vote because I couln’t agree with any of the options. If I understand heaven correctly, it cannot exist unless I can freely choose to love. So, eliminating the freedom to choose, eliminates heaven.

Then I think your answer would rightfully be “no” because you envision that full beatitude with God can not be attained without freewill and without having the choice to freely love Him or without the opportunity or choice to reject Him. I believe this option is the current “status quo” for what we believe. That is, except for some mentally incompetent and invincibly ignorant all must make explicit choices and not cast off free will through a luke warm yes or no.

What if a less than full beatitude were possible through slave obedience to God that was still infinitely better than eternal separation in hell? Do you want to risk going to hell for a sure bet at say “paradise” that is perhaps not in deep beatitude with God but is instead peaceful and happy in servitude and eternal existence?

If you can’t vote “no” then you should have voted “Must I make a choice?”. That answer is “yes” since all must choose for or against God otherwise there is no freewill and the default of no decision is one chooses against God since we are told there is no middle ground. One must love God with whole heart and mind and soul or one fails.

James

 

[Catholic_Dude]

It’s an odd and oversimplified question.
Nothing compares to Heaven, so to suggest a “trade” would only mean choosing between something infinitely good versus a finite good.