The point is that it allows us to become like God instead of being unconscious creatures living out a map of instincts. Free will allows the possibility of doing what you don’t want to do or not doing what you want to do. As in, you may decide to lay down your life to save mankind, your friends, and in that selfless act become more like God than robot or animal could be and able to live with him as one who shares his qualities.After all, no matter how good you might be, you cannot “earn” your way to heaven. Good works, proper decisions, virtuous life are all insufficient. It would be much better to be a “mindless” robot, to be predestined to heaven. To have free will, which allows one to make incorrect decisions is a burden or a curse.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=959977He did. He drowned an entire planet full of people. If killing millions of innocent children isn’t evil, then we must be using different definitions.
One of these days I hope I will learn what does “love” mean in this context. Because it has nothing to do with the love one feels for others.God wants us to genuinely love him just as he loves us.
Where is the “dignity” is screaming your head off when one of God’s “beloved children” applies electrodes to your genitals and tortures you to death?Because God wants to dignify humans.
The price for that is too much. And if you or your loved ones would be on the receiving end of what some of God’s “beloved children” are allowed to do in the name of “free will”, then you probably would agree with me.The point is that it allows us to become like God instead of being unconscious creatures living out a map of instincts. Free will allows the possibility of doing what you don’t want to do or not doing what you want to do.
The church has no teaching concerning the bible, as far as I know. Which parts are to be taken literally, and which ones are allegorical… and if they are allegorical, then what do they mean? During the last 2000 years the church did not find the resources to separate the wheat from the chaff? There is the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, which is a verse-by-verse analysis of the bible. A very interesting read.The Church does not have a teaching on the Flood. Catholics are free to accept the basic three theories:
And what are those “valuable” teachings? That God kills and/or allows people to be killed indiscriminately? We already know that from observing the disasters God sends unto us. (And they are not “natural” disasters. There is nothing “natural”, when God maintains and sustains the world in existence.)
- That the story is literally true.
- That the story is not literally true but is included in the Scriptures to teach us valuable theology about who we are and God’s relationship to us.
- That the story, while primarily poetic and non-historical, is based on an actual ancient flood and uses literary style to make theological points.
Doesn’t choosing to die for others have anything to do with he love one feels for others.One of these days I hope I will learn what does “love” mean in this context. Because it has nothing to do with the love one feels for others.
How can cruelty be prevented if we have free will?Where is the “dignity” is screaming your head off when one of God’s “beloved children” applies electrodes to your genitals and tortures you to death? The price for that is too much. And if you or your loved ones would be on the receiving end of what some of God’s “beloved children” are allowed to do in the name of “free will”, then you probably would agree with me.
The books of the Bible were selected by the Church!The church has no teaching concerning the bible, as far as I know. Which parts are to be taken literally, and which ones are allegorical… and if they are allegorical, then what do they mean? During the last 2000 years the church did not find the resources to separate the wheat from the chaff? There is the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, which is a verse-by-verse analysis of the bible. A very interesting read.
How can misfortunes be prevented in an orderly universe?And what are those “valuable” teachings? That God kills and/or allows people to be killed indiscriminately? We already know that from observing the disasters God sends unto us. (And they are not “natural” disasters. There is nothing “natural”, when God maintains and sustains the world in existence.)
After all, no matter how good you might be, you cannot “earn” your way to heaven. Good works, proper decisions, virtuous life are all insufficient. It would be much better to be a “mindless” robot, to be predestined to heaven. To have free will, which allows one to make incorrect decisions is a burden or a curse.
Nothing at all. To “miss” something you have to be aware of the existence of that “something”. Don’t forget, all Epsilons in “Brave New World” were happy. Not to be happy in that world was an aberration, a fluke, a mistake.If you for instance were “mindless” what else would you be missing as well?
And it does not HAVE to be. There is no reason for “free will” to be TOO free. I don’t know where the idea came from that in order to have free will one must have the freedom to perpetrate mayhem, murders, rapes and other assorted bad things, which are not beneficial to victims. Why is the “freedom” of the rapist is “dearer” to God’s heart than the unfulfilled “freedom” of the victims not to be raped.Yes, this life is a burden.
Yes.Does the story actually say something along the lines of ’ and now, I God multiplied the water to kill’…
The theological point being that if you disobey God, he will kill you. And he will kill your wife and your parents. And your children. And everyone you know. In fact, He will kill everyone.forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=959977
The Church does not have a teaching on the Flood. Catholics are free to accept the basic three theories:
- That the story is literally true.
- That the story is not literally true but is included in the Scriptures to teach us valuable theology about who we are and God’s relationship to us.
- That the story, while primarily poetic and non-historical, is based on an actual ancient flood and uses literary style to make theological points.
Well, one very good posdibilty is the the writer-and his peers or contemporaries-simply didn’t God as well as we should now, via mainly the revelation Christ gave us.The theological point being that if you disobey God, he will kill you. And he will kill your wife and your parents. And your children. And everyone you know. In fact, He will kill everyone.
So the story is not true, but God comes across as a celestial version of Will Munny in Unforgiven:
God: And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Mummy: That’s right. I’ve killed women and children. I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another.
Drowning children is evil. Why would you make up a story that says God drowned children?
Let me try that again:The theological point being that if you disobey God, he will kill you. And he will kill your wife and your parents. And your children. And everyone you know. In fact, He will kill everyone.
So the story is not true, but God comes across as a celestial version of Will Munny in Unforgiven:
God: And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Mummy: That’s right. I’ve killed women and children. I’ve killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another.
Drowning children is evil. Why would you make up a story that says God drowned children?
Hasn’t someone told you? The bible is the word of God. But what you are suggesting is that it can’t be trusted.Let me try that again:
Well, one very good possibilty is that the writer-and his peers or contemporaries-simply didn’t know God as well as we should now, mainly due to the revelation Christ gave us.
I don’t think anyone was there to record that conversation. This is somebody centuries or a millennia away from when they imagine the story recreating it in their minds, recreating a possible conversation. What you read is a humans version of what they suppose.Yes.
"Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
He says that in a week’s time He is going to drown everyone.
Did you see that picture of the child washed up on a Turkish beach a few weeks ago? Didn’t it break your heart? Didn’t you try not to think of the terror the young boy went through in his last few minutes? The sheer horror of it? Now multiply that by a few million.
As I said, if you don’t think that that is evil, then you are using a different definition.
That’s fairly easy. Scripture isn’t a catechism or a theological treatise. It’s a compilation of various writings from various authors over centuries. It’s understood in light of the Church’s understanding of it-and of the Church’s understanding of God’s nature and will for His creation. The Church, not scripture per se, defines these things.Hasn’t someone told you? The bible is the word of God. But what you are suggesting is that it can’t be trusted.
Which bits can we discount (because the writers didn’t really know God as well as we do now)?
Stephen Oppenheimer in Eden In The East (1998) summarises scientific findings of the last few decades including that in the last 20,000 years there have been at least three colossal floods including one that topped major mountains.Hasn’t someone told you? The bible is the word of God. But what you are suggesting is that it can’t be trusted.
Which bits can we discount (because the writers didn’t really know God as well as we do now)?
Every human being that walks this planet will die somehow. Why would we make up a story that says “all people die?” It appears that is reality. How you deal with that reality is a story in itself.Drowning children is evil. Why would you make up a story that says God drowned children?
There is no discrepancy. Something that is consequentially good does not mean it is deontologically good. Two separate concepts.You pointed out a minor linguistic discrepancy. We have TWO words: for biologically “bad” (simply “bad”) and one for morally “bad” (which
is “evil”). They are not the same. However, there is no distinction between biologically “good” and morally “good” actions. Guess, why? Because if something is
biologically “good”, then it is also morally “good”! And if something is not “biologically good” it cannot be “morally good” either.
Ah, forgive me. I should have used the word “secular”, rather than “human”.If the Catholic perspective is fundamentally different from the “human perspective”, then it MUST be discarded as irrational.
Nope. It’s more that just the desire to go along with it. It’s the willingness to fulfill that desire. The difference may seem subtle, I’ll admit, but it’s quite significant. You can see a more elaborate explanation in my next post, where I respond to Bradski.Actually, it is a desire to go along with it. But until the act is actually committed, it is merely a daydreaming or just a desire.
Whether you believe in the existence of the soul or not has no bearing on this discussion. You asked what the point of free will was in a Catholic forum. I’m providing a Catholic explanation. You don’t have to believe in the soul to understand a point of view on free will that assumes that the existence of the soul is real.Since the “soul” is just another undefined concept, and there is no evidence for its existence, I cannot accept what you say here. We ARE the sum of our actions.
But now you say you can’t accept an answer that involves the soul?After all, no matter how good you might be, you cannot “earn” your way to heaven. Good works, proper decisions, virtuous life are all insufficient. It would be much better to be a “mindless” robot, to be predestined to heaven. To have free will, which allows one to make incorrect decisions is a burden or a curse.
Right. I don’t disagreee with the assesment of your example. But like I said above, it’s more that just the desire to something. It’s the willingness to fulfill that desire. The difference may seem subtle, I’ll admit, but it’s quite significant.No it’s not. It’s the desire to do something, not the actual planning to do it.
If I saw a beautiful woman in the street and my wife said: ‘I’d bet you’d like to make love to her’, then for the sake of some marital harmony I would deny it. But she would know and I would know that she would know that I would.
But, and this is the important point, I wouldn’t make any effort whatsoever to get to know that woman with a view to getting her into the sack. That would be immoral. But just having a natural reaction, finding her physically attractive and perhaps imagining what it would be like to be in bed with her, thoughts which would be impossible to control, is not.
You can’t hold someone to account for what they think. You certainly can if that person starts to make plans to actualise them.
That’s what Pallas meant by thought crime.