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dshix
Guest
Why did you change the subject?
Where is free will when God puts his grace, visions and miracles in some people but not in others?
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Aloysium
Guest
Your understanding fails to describe our true relationship with God.
I was pointing you in a direction that might help you clarify things.
I guess you will see things as you do and my (name removed by moderator)ut will have no value.
I cannot be clearer than what I read in the catechism.
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LoveGod102
Guest
According to what?
God DID make obvious direct and undeniable vision to many people who have shared them. Examples: Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Lourdes. There many others which I can’t think of on the top of my head. Yet do many people still ignore Him? Do we still disobey His will? I can speak for myself: I’m not perfect and sometimes I sin, despite my faith in God.
And even if it were “follow His will or be doomed,” which it isn’t, as I explained in my other post, this would mean that there is no free will/ Free will is the ability to choose right from wrong. Fear doesn’t mean we have no choice. Can it make it harder to choose what we want to choose? Sure. The point of our knowledge of hell is to give us motivation not to sin. But that doesn’t mean that we have no choice. That’s like saying that if someone warns you that something really bad will happen if you steal something, then that person took away your free will, by making it harder for you to choose the wrong thing. The police don’t take away our free will because they arrest people who break the law. They give people motivation to not break the law. But people still do break the law anyway, therefore people still have free will despite the police punishing lawbreakers.
And despite God warning us of hell, people still sin every day, myself included, unfortunately.
If we had no free will, there would be no sin.
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oldcelt
Guest
You are right, your premise is incorrect:
- The creator decides to create Joe. Joe has no choice in this act.
- The creator is not restricted by any time constraints and therefore knows everything that Joe will do throughout his life.
- Joe fails to live up to the creator’s rules…as the creator knew he would because of the creator’s lack of time restriction.
- Joe is condemned to never-ending hell fire upon his death…precisely as the creator knew he would be before he ever created Joe.
- The creator created Joe with foreknowledge of his failure and ultimate condemnation.
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LoveGod102
Guest
I wouldn’t necessarily say that that moment matters the most in all of our lifetime, because what we do throughout our life will influence what we will choose then. That said, that moment is our last chance to choose God if we haven’t already done so. Even if you’ve committed a million and one mortal sins throughout your life that you have yet to repent of, if you are truly repentant at that moment, if you are sorry that you’ve offended God, then He will forgive you, and you will choose heaven.
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dshix
Guest
So, it would be a limitation of free will were the creator to choose not to create anyone that would choose to act against His will, right? You are correct that the Creator creates all beings, knowing whether or not they will be damned, because of foreknowledge. The said Creator did not create the said person for the purpose of being damned, but rather, simply knew **that he would be **damned at his death.
That’s that. Free will.
What have you proven that we did not already know?
(I respect your personal non-belief in a Christian deity, and appreciate your willingness to discuss it nonetheless.)
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oldcelt
Guest
Then what is our “true” relationship that I have missed. According to Catholicism is God omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent? I have taken my argument from these points and pointed out the inconsistencies that they have with a merciful god and true free will.
Free will is destroyed from the very beginning since none of us are given a choice relative to our creation according to any Christian sect of which I am aware.
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oldcelt
Guest
As I appreciate your replies. I just view the creation of a pre-condemned human more darkly than others I guess. That’s why I am now a deist. I believe that there was a creator, who put creation in motion and backed away. Whether that was by choice or limitation I honestly don’t know.
Be well.
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dshix
Guest
The problem of evil is one which has been answered correctly and succinctly on countless other threads.
I feel it is a tangent rather too big for this thread, so I suggest we not go off topic in this direction.
I hate to overuse the term, or to seem that I am harping one thing and one thing alone, but this is yet another non-sequitur. How, exactly, does free will have anything to do with choosing the circumstances of our creation? It has everything to do with what we do after our creation, but not before.
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LoveGod102
Guest
Your first two premises are correct. Your second is partly correct. God knows what we will do yes. However, it’s not all about obeying rules. If someone does not know that something is wrong, and He does it, then that is not a sin. And the reason we have to obey rules is because it’s best for us, not just because God wants us to. God doesn’t make rules for the sake of making rules.
We can’t work our way to heaven by perfectly obeying a set of rules. That isn’t what God wants. He wants us to accept His love and grace which He gives freely. If we refuse to even try to follow Him, (notice I say refuse, if someone, by no fault of his/her own, does not believe in God and the correct morals, then God does not hold him/her responsible for that), then we are rejecting His love and grace.
Premise four is incorrect if you mean that God condemns him. God condemns no one, no matter what that person has or hasn’t done. People condemn themselves; they choose hell. Why? Hell is choosing to be totally away from God. People choose hell, because they have chosen to completely reject Him, and for these people, heaven would be worse torture than hell. Why? Imagine spending eternity with someone you have chosen to completely reject. That is what heaven would be for those people who choose hell. While God wants us to be with Him in heaven, He loves us enough to give us the choice of hell. If He did not give us this choice, then heaven wouldn’t be a choice either but rather something forced.
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dshix
Guest
I actually strongly sympathize. The problem of evil is a very hard stumbling block for many people, and it would be one for me if I hadn’t had such good catechisis and explanation of it by my mentors.
It does have an answer, though; a satisfying one. Though it may be one I am not skilled enough to give myself, it exists.
Thank you for the discussion.
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dshix
Guest
I actually strongly sympathize. The problem of evil is a very hard stumbling block for many people, and it would be one for me if I hadn’t had such good explanation of it by my mentors.
The reality really lies in the fact that God wished to give mankind free will, because without free will we could not truly love Him. But, in giving us free will, the inevitable reality is that we would fall, we would sin.
God, being true to His promise and unwilling to refuse us our free will, even if we abused it, creates us fully knowing when, how, and why we will sin. It must pain Him, but He creates us out of love, wishing for us to return it.
The problem does have an answer; a satisfying one. Though it may be one I am not skilled enough to give myself, it exists.
Thank you for the discussion.
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lizmw
Guest
You sound a little angry that God has not sent irrefutable evidence of his existence into the lives of everyone. It seems to me that those saints that he did grace with this experience were unfortunately also given contact with evil in an extraordinary way. That being said, I think that if you reach out to God he reaches out to you, and most people find in their life of faith much supernatural consolation in their everyday lives. Events in their past and childhood can be seen in a whole new light and very often they realize that God was never as far from them as they thought. Perhaps not as flashy or as quick as a “road to Emmaus” experience but it should get you there.
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JerryZ
Guest
So according to you, you do not have free will because your parents did not ask for your permission to procreate you and God is complicit with them because He created the soul that is necessary to complete a human being.
Please elaborate on your “true free will” concept, I am curious.
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esieffe
Guest
Just because we don’t know about other miracles, doesn’t mean they don’t happen.
Just because we exercise free will in the wrong way doesn’t mean we are bound for hell. What it means is that we have won for ourselves a free lesson in the school of hard knocks until we come around.
Just because we exercise free will in the wrong way doesn’t mean we are bound for hell. What it means is that we have won for ourselves a free lesson in the school of hard knocks until we come around.
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JamesATyler
Guest
If a child turns out bad then it’s because the child was not free to be good. The parents didn’t raise the kid right. The world was not created right. Man was created to be doomed. I think that’s what he saying. (if the Christian God is real)
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JamesATyler
Guest
I’ve already explained that if God sees Joe in Hell, it’s way to late to not create him. Joe lived, died, and went to Hell. That’s why God sees him there. If God didn’t create Joe, and Joe didn’t live until he reached Hell, there wouldn’t be a future with Joe in Hell for God to see. I know you can’t see it, but your plain wrong in the way you understand things.
Joe, just plainly, has to exist to have a future that can be seen by God. I ***must ***exist to have a future. You are stating that, creatures that don’t exist, have a future which can be seen by God. That’s wrong.
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LoveGod102
Guest
I understand your confusion on this issue. It’s a mystery that we cannot fully understand as to why God creates people He knows will choose hell. However, it comes down to whether we trust Him or not. I do trust Him, and I pray that you will come to trust Him too.
Can I ask why it is that you view the creation of people who will ultimately choose hell, more darkly than the belief that a god created people and then either just walked away leaving them on their own, or was simply not powerful enough to help them, despite being powerful enough to create them?
The later seems much darker to me.
If my assumption that that is your view is incorrect, then I apologize.
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LoveGod102
Guest
I don’t think that’s correct. It sounds like you are limiting God, though I doubt intentionally. God can choose to not create someone. How could His ability to create (or not create) someone be limited by anything?
I won’t pretend to fully understand why God creates people who will choose hell, but your reasoning seems off to me.
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tonyrey
Guest
There is no such person as “a pre-condemned human”. We condemn ourselves when we choose to live solely for ourselves. Self-love which leads to lack of love for others is the root of all the evil and unnecessary suffering by which we are surrounded.
Justice is not an illusion or human convention. It is a fact of life. Ultimately we all get what we deserve: we become either mature and wholesome or rotten and poisonous.
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