What’s the free will?

[Bradskii]

Even if the decision-making process is deep in your subconscious, the decision itself is visible to you. Therefore, you can overrule what your subconscious has chosen.

I think you miss the point. ANY decision you make could be the result of your subconscious taking info from all areas of your brain. It’s not as if a decision comes to mind and you think: ‘Hey, that was my subconscious making that call! So I’ll go with the red roses instead because I’M in charge and I want to make the decisions around here!’

Unless you are schizophrenic, you don’t argue with yourself about who is making the call. It’s simply made. The problem is that we don’t know where that decision is made.

 

[Gorgias]

I think you miss the point. ANY decision you make could be the result of your subconscious taking info from all areas of your brain.

Perhaps it can work that way. But, I think the proper characterization is less schizophrenia, and more like, “ROSES! I love roses! Meh… not today. Gerbera daisies for me, today.”

It’s not “arguing with yourself”, so much as it’s your conscious mind engaging with what your subconscious mind might present to you.

In fact, perhaps I might suggest that your conscious mind ratifies and accedes to your subconscious impulses (or, from the other perspective, rejects and chooses otherwise).

 

[rose321]

If you are to overrule a decision then you need to know what that decision was, in order to be able to overrule it. If it was a subconscious decision, then by definition, you would not be conscious of it. There is nothing for you to overrule.

Asking respectfully with free will given our conscious will it bare witness against us on judgment day, for our conscious can never lie, it always speaks the truth?

We can deceive others, but we can never deceive ourselves for our own good conscious always speaks the truth, it cannot lie, our conscious (mind) will not allow it?

The desires of the flesh is always opposing the Spirit?
Want that piece of chocolate cake, but my conscious tells me not good for me, but my flesh is weak? Is it not written…know thyself?

St Paul gives us a teaching example of this when he says?
Why do I want to do what… I know is not good? How did St Paul know what was not good for him? His Conscious? Divine spark within us all has been given?
Written…Jesus telling us he was the first spark in darkness? Know thyself?

We were given a conscious for a reason, it serves a good purpose also does it not?
Written, I leave you not orphans?
You seek me, but I am right where you stand?
Interesting is all in pondering on his word.

Example. One who steals from others, knows he stole, yet thou he thinks he won over others into believing, deceiving them, he did not steal, but he knows within his own good conscious the truth…he has stolen, he is lying, for our own conscious will not allow us to deceive ourselves, our own good conscious can only speak the truth…right?

Cannot serve two masters…fleshly desires vs spirit?
Peace

 

[Bradskii]

In fact, perhaps I might suggest that your conscious mind ratifies and accedes to your subconscious impulses (or, from the other perspective, rejects and chooses otherwise).

You (the conscious you) are buying an icecream. You don’t know if your subconscious is involved or not (it is, but you are utterly unaware of it - by definition).

So there is nothing to override. There is nothing to reject. There isn’t a little guy on your shoulder whispering ‘Not the chocolate!’ All you do is say ‘Vanilla thanks’.

I was going to ask you at this point: Who made the call? But we already know the answer. You don’t know. By the very definition of ‘subconscious’, you cannot know.

 

[rose321]

So there is nothing to override. There is nothing to reject. There isn’t a little guy on your shoulder whispering ‘Not the chocolate!’ All you do is say ‘Vanilla thanks’.

We say yes more easily to somethings… because having that ice cream will do us no harm if we do not have health issues, not being diabetic, easy to say vanilla please…right? Our own good conscious makes us aware does it not?

Like the story of the bad wolf and good wolf within us, the one we feed is the one that comes out, wins? Jesus teaching to know thyself?
Our good conscious tells us, not to do it, our bad wolf within says go for it even thou we know we shouldn’t?
What free will is all about…making choices good or bad, cannot serve 2 masters and be faithful to one…
We all know what is good for us.who does not want what is good for themselves…but…like St Paul why do I do what I do not want to do?

That little guy maybe is ones good conscious the good wolf…the other tempting us is the bad wolf we have the power within to over ride, but our flesh is weak?
Peace

 

[fhansen]

God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin.” – Reason described in CCC 310; 314; etc.

As long as that’s understood to mean that God didn’t directly will Adam to sin even as He allowed him to do so.

And the rest of your post is all pretty much backward. The Catholic teaching on human freedom includes the following:

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

And there’s a subtle yet critical distinction in the role that freedom plays in justification, because man is never forced to say “yes” to God; he can’t say “yes” without help but he can always say “no” at any step along the way::

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom . On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

When God touches man’s heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God’s sight.42

 

[Gorgias]

So there is nothing to override. There is nothing to reject. There isn’t a little guy on your shoulder whispering ‘Not the chocolate!’ All you do is say ‘Vanilla thanks’.

OK, but this is a different scenario than what we’d been discussing. Where the conversation had been going was the notion that, if you have a strong aversion to something, then that aversion might lodge itself in your subconscious, so that you don’t even remember why you hate clowns, or pho, or chocolate ice cream. But, noticing what you were about to choose against, you still have the ability to say “you know what? I’m gonna try the chocolate today.”

Your general case for the subconscious, contra free will, is a different notion altogether. And, like you say, if you can’t note the workings of your subconscious, then you can’t make any claims about what it is or isn’t doing.

 

[Bradskii]

Your general case for the subconscious, contra free will, is a different notion altogether. And, like you say, if you can’t note the workings of your subconscious, then you can’t make any claims about what it is or isn’t doing.

Exactly my point.

So moving on from there, are ‘you’ a combo of your conscious and unconscious states.

 

[Gorgias]

So moving on from there, are ‘you’ a combo of your conscious and unconscious states.

I would argue that I am a body/soul composite. Not a “combination”, and not disjoint parts. An integral composite.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

So moving on from there, are ‘you’ a combo of your conscious and unconscious states.

I would argue that I am a body/soul composite. Not a “combination”, and not disjoint parts. An integral composite.

However you would like to describe it, there is a conscious ‘you’, the one that’s reading this and deciphering its meaning and the unconscious ‘you’. The one you are not aware of. Are you simply the first or a combination of the two?

If either case you are being controlled by the second in quite a lot of what you do. In which case, to what degree can you be held responsible for unconscious decisions?

 

[Latin]

There’s a subtle yet critical distinction in the role that freedom plays in justification

308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes:
"For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."171
Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it.
.
There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will. (De fide.)
.
CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.”

2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man. …”

As long as that’s understood to mean that God didn’t directly will Adam to sin even as He allowed him to do so.

310 With infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create this world in a state of journeying towards its ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin.
.
At the point God decided to take the human race to ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin, God had to create in this world the dramas of evil and sin.

This is what He created at His cause of the “fall.”

.
IN THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION by John Salza explains.

Page 121; “Fr. Most identifies the metaphysical issue as follows:

Sufficient grace gives man the potency to do good, but do not give the application.

For the application efficacious grace is required to move him from potency to act.

Therefore, sufficient grace is insufficient to move him to act.
.
Page 77; When God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace that infallibly produces the end ( the act willed by God ).

If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious grace.

The distinctions between these graces reveal that God is responsible for man’s salvation.

FOR EXAMPLE
Page 113: However, the Church teaches that God infused Adam with sufficient grace to resist temptation and to perform his duties with charity.
God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin.” – Reason described in CCC 310; 314; etc.

I know God’s active and permissive will.
God permissive will is NEVER OUTSIDE His active will.

God actively willed to provide Adam sufficient grace to resist sin (made sure Adam will “fall” because He needed to create the dramas of evil and sin) and He allowed Adam to “fall.” – God designed/ planned the event of the “fall” and (as every other events He designed/ planned in the universe) He predestined them from all eternity.

You know Fhansen, God had to (310; 314) create the dramas of evil and sin, for this creation God needed the “fall.” – Plain and simple.
.
God bless

 

[Gorgias]

If either case you are being controlled by the second in quite a lot of what you do. In which case, to what degree can you be held responsible for unconscious decisions?

Not controlled. Influenced, maybe. But, if my conscious mind is the gatekeeper to my actions, then yeah… I’m responsible.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

If either case you are being controlled by the second in quite a lot of what you do. In which case, to what degree can you be held responsible for unconscious decisions?

Not controlled. Influenced, maybe. But, if my conscious mind is the gatekeeper to my actions, then yeah… I’m responsible.

The proposal is that your subconscious mind makes the calls (at least some of them) and passes them to your conscious mind as ready made decisions. You feel as if you have made them, but as you are unaware (obviously) of the unconscious machinations, there is no point at which you decide to run with them or not.

You are not checking the viability of the subconscious decisions at some gateway and deciding to accept or reject them. There is no gatekeeper.

 

[Gorgias]

The proposal is that your subconscious mind makes the calls (at least some of them) and passes them to your conscious mind as ready made decisions. You feel as if you have made them, but as you are unaware (obviously) of the unconscious machinations, there is no point at which you decide to run with them or not.

So… if your conscious mind “decides to run with them or not”, how can we claim that the subconscious makes “ready made decisions”?

You are not checking the viability of the subconscious decisions at some gateway and deciding to accept or reject them. There is no gatekeeper.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, no? Unless you’re saying that we are unable to be anything but mindless automatons, who blindly accept what we’re handed…

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

The proposal is that your subconscious mind makes the calls (at least some of them) and passes them to your conscious mind as ready made decisions. You feel as if you have made them, but as you are unaware (obviously) of the unconscious machinations, there is no point at which you decide to run with them or not.

So… if your conscious mind “decides to run with them or not”, how can we claim that the subconscious makes “ready made decisions”?

You are not checking the viability of the subconscious decisions at some gateway and deciding to accept or reject them. There is no gatekeeper.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, no? Unless you’re saying that we are unable to be anything but mindless automatons, who blindly accept what we’re handed…

C’mon. Read what I write. I didn’t say our conscious mind ‘decides to run with them’. I said the complete opposite: ‘there is no point at which you (the conscious mind) decides to run with them or not.’

And where did I say we are mindless automatons? I’ve been VERY careful NOT to say that. Don’t read into this more than I am saying.

But who, in any case, is the ‘we’ to which you refer? Both the conscious and unconscious aspects?

 

[Richca]

You can’t exist or choose to exist or not to exist before you exist which appears to be the absurd process of the questioning of your opening post. The free will is a spiritual power of the human soul which God immediately creates for every human being at conception and along with the created intellect is what makes human beings principally human beings made to the image and likeness of God and different from the brute animals. The free will is an essential component of being a human being and capable of sharing in the divine nature and the eternal happiness of God.

 

[fhansen]

There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will. (De fide.)

Man cannot move his own will towards God. For that he needs grace. But he can still always refuse the grace of justification; he can say “no” to God. As Augustine put it,
"But He who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge, but He does not justify you without you willing it.”

I know God’s active and permissive will. God permissive will is NEVER OUTSIDE His active will.

Sorry, not in Catholicism:
"311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil , incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself."

 

[Nicky777]

Free Will is a gift from God the freedom to choose your will or his the freedom to choose sin or to glorify God God created us out of pure love and from that love he gave us free will from how does it glorify him if we do his will involuntarily think about it your own children would you want them to love you freely on their own or would you want them to love you by command Free Will is the greatest gift from God but can also be the fly in the ointment sometimes we do the things we do not intend which offends him but we can do the good to glorify him and that is our sole purpose on this Earth is to glorify him so choose him and everything thought word and deed God bless

 

[Gorgias]

Read what I write. I didn’t say our conscious mind ‘decides to run with them’. I said the complete opposite: ‘there is no point at which you (the conscious mind) decides to run with them or not.’

I would disagree. You’re saying that you have no control over your body’s impulses? Really?

And where did I say we are mindless automatons? I’ve been VERY careful NOT to say that. Don’t read into this more than I am saying.

Well… from the perspective of your conscious mind, that’s the picture you’re painting, isn’t it?

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Read what I write. I didn’t say our conscious mind ‘decides to run with them’. I said the complete opposite: ‘there is no point at which you (the conscious mind) decides to run with them or not.’

I would disagree. You’re saying that you have no control over your body’s impulses? Really?

Most of what happens with your body you have no conscious control. It’s where that unconscious determination bubbles up into the consciousness is where the problem lies.