R
Rubee
Guest
In light of the recent discussions on universalism and all, I thought it important to discuss what we mean by free will. Here’s an interesting discussion by E.Orthodox theologian, D.B.Hart:
Can we separate the freedom to choose from our knowledge and understanding? I think it’s logically impossible: You can only choose what you know, not what you are ignorant of. So if any act is FREE at all, it must necessarily be preceded by understanding. The will always follows an intellectual object (of understanding), which is informed by what one desires, which comes from one’s nature (that no one gives himself). Freedom classically understood by Christians, he says, is the ability to fulfill one’s desires. The transcendental desires: Goodness, Love, Beauty, Justice, etc, that we use among the proofs of God, are fundamentally our nature.
This is what makes the saints TRULY free while sinners are slaves. The saints have fulfilled ALL (nearly all) their deepest desires, (especially those in Union, and most of all, those in the beatific vision) while sinners haplessly move on from one infinitely unsatisfying object to another, in an endless prison of wanting and not having. There’s not too much exercising of free will for the holy ones because there’s no more choice. Their minds know they have found all and their will is perfectly and completely satiated by its possession.
On the other hand, the libertarian idea of “free will” as the ability to choose anything at all, unguided by an intellectual object (something understood rightly/wrongly) is not an act of the intellect, but something akin to a volcanic eruption, as DBH says. Totally arbitrary. It’s not freedom at all. If the bad object does come from their desire, then at most it’s a mistake/misunderstanding of the final end their desire tends to. If it’s not a mistake/ignorance, we have to ask where the desire comes from in the first place, then. Can a bad object just magically form in opposition to one’s own desires? One’s nature?
Wonder what you all think? This, in my opinion, is why it’s impossible for us and the church to claim that anyone is in hell. We can never appreciate what intellectual objects guide their will, and to what extent they are distortions of the ultimate ends (God) to which they naturally orient.
Can we separate the freedom to choose from our knowledge and understanding? I think it’s logically impossible: You can only choose what you know, not what you are ignorant of. So if any act is FREE at all, it must necessarily be preceded by understanding. The will always follows an intellectual object (of understanding), which is informed by what one desires, which comes from one’s nature (that no one gives himself). Freedom classically understood by Christians, he says, is the ability to fulfill one’s desires. The transcendental desires: Goodness, Love, Beauty, Justice, etc, that we use among the proofs of God, are fundamentally our nature.
This is what makes the saints TRULY free while sinners are slaves. The saints have fulfilled ALL (nearly all) their deepest desires, (especially those in Union, and most of all, those in the beatific vision) while sinners haplessly move on from one infinitely unsatisfying object to another, in an endless prison of wanting and not having. There’s not too much exercising of free will for the holy ones because there’s no more choice. Their minds know they have found all and their will is perfectly and completely satiated by its possession.
On the other hand, the libertarian idea of “free will” as the ability to choose anything at all, unguided by an intellectual object (something understood rightly/wrongly) is not an act of the intellect, but something akin to a volcanic eruption, as DBH says. Totally arbitrary. It’s not freedom at all. If the bad object does come from their desire, then at most it’s a mistake/misunderstanding of the final end their desire tends to. If it’s not a mistake/ignorance, we have to ask where the desire comes from in the first place, then. Can a bad object just magically form in opposition to one’s own desires? One’s nature?
Wonder what you all think? This, in my opinion, is why it’s impossible for us and the church to claim that anyone is in hell. We can never appreciate what intellectual objects guide their will, and to what extent they are distortions of the ultimate ends (God) to which they naturally orient.
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