The Existence of Freewill

[Michie]

A tip of the hat to Gurney...



That's been my point for a few posts. I agree with this wholeheartedly, and it can be found in the Catholic tradition as well.

Plus one. I hate the gloom & doom attitude towards Catholicism & Christianity as a whole. It's not called 'Good News' for nothing.

 

[AMDG]

Mortal sin can result from a momentary lapse of judgement. Mortal sin is really, really easy.

Snipped to portion addressed. Longer post above.

Not according to the Church. Three things must be present for a sin to be mortal--1. the action must be gravely wrong, 2. the person has to know that it is gravely wrong, and 3. the person has to freely choose to do it anyway. If even one of the 3 requirements is missing, there is no mortal sin.

 

[Needing_Grace]

Snipped to portion addressed. Longer post above.

Not according to the Church. Three things must be present for a sin to be mortal--1. the action must be gravely wrong, 2. the person has to know that it is gravely wrong, and 3. the person has to freely choose to do it anyway. If even one of the 3 requirements is missing, there is no mortal sin.

I can come up with a million scenarios where these conditions are very easily met. Sometimes, it doesn't even take a physical act. It is indeed very, very easy to fall into mortal sin; thus in danger of hellfire.

 

[Irenaeus]

There's a phrase I love from the Dies Irae...

Quærens me, sedisti lassus:
Redemisti Crucem passus:
Tantus labor non sit cassus.

Seeking me, you sat, tired.
Having redeemed me, you suffered the cross.
May so much work not be in vain.

To think about it. Our Lord went through all that trouble to save us. Even if people end up locking themselves in hell, he is going to do the best he can to make sure we get to heaven with him before that can happen. His grace is constantly knocking.

 

[Chany]

There are really two different questions that people could be referring to as free-will.

In Calvinist/Reformed tradition, building upon Augustine and Aquinas the argument of free-will is very limited, referring really only to the question of salvation and knowing God.

In a more broad philosophical/Scientific sense, the question of free-will vs determinism is about the nature of existence and the universe, and it covers every aspect of life and being. Are any of your choices actually free, or are they all the product of an inevitable chain of cause and effect.

Which one are you asking about?

I'm discussing things in the broader sense. I believe pre-destination and things like the elect are incompatible with a just God and the God of Christianity, who points to there being some sort of choice in the matter of following Him or not. It ultimately leads up to the question of knowing God and salvation, but if you don't even have freewill, well, you're nothing but an animal.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

No. I put little stock in private revelations. We have the Scriptures, which gives us plenty of information...for example:

Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

Luke 13:24
Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

The way this strikes me is that the gate is wide as long as you are doing "group" activities, or doing what others in the group are doing. This path is great for conditioning and for moral formation, but at some point we are called individually to our own paths toward God, drawn for us by the Holy Spirit. That's why after getting down the basics, one needs to become sensitive to the Spirit, and ultimately born of the spirit and enter the kingdom.

The Good News is NOT that we may live a life of worry and anxiety so that we MAYBE are going to be blissful forever but more likely we will rot in hell. To me that's the Terrible News. Basically it's a lottery and I will most likely be with the largest group -- those bound for hell.

But Jesus also said that in His Father's house, there were many rooms.

So this all supports the idea of the "narrow gate" being just wide enough for one of us individually; the Spirit brings each of us into the kingdom through a different trajectory. The REAL Good News is that it is possible for us to learn a way of like and way of thinking Jesus refers to as the Kingdom, which is clearly for while we are still here on this earth.

So IMO, spending this life hoping to be happy after I die is worse than just having Low Expectations; I think it's an insult to God for having even put us on earth. If we seek first the things of the kingdom, all else will be given to us. Once born of the spirit, all else falls into place.

Alan

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

Mortal sin can result from a momentary lapse of judgement. Mortal sin is really, really easy.

Sure, Ill give you that.

Thanks to Original Sin, yeah, that's kinda it. Jesus said so, too, "no one can come to Me unless the Father draw him" (John 6:65).

How about John 12:32?

I said this a while back: there are people who envision everyone as a beautiful, unique snowflake; just that's far from the truth.

We've got rapists, murders, adulterers, assaulters, blasphemers, heretics, liars, sadists, people motivated by greed, people who are too materialistic, people who only care for themselves, people who don't help their fellow man, racists, bigots, xenophobia, promiscuity, addicts, hypocrites, the slothful, the wrathful, war seekers, the suicidal, the genocidal, persecution, vanity, abortionists, lust, divorce, envy, euthanasia, scandals, using fear, using force, mockers, gossipers.

I have no problems saying there are exceptions to the rule...but on the flip side, I also have no problems saying that there are people who prefer to follow their lives as they see fit without one iota of care for their soul or what it can lead to for others around them.

I also believe if God can throw a bone towards those who were once pagan or just overall unchristian, who exuded brutality and mayhem and have them become saints of the Church, I truly believe you have to work at it into not getting into Heaven.

 

[elopez]

Does anyone on this board have a good philosophical answer that proves the existence of freewill? The answer has to be compatible with the Christian understanding of God. I have yet to find a valid argument for actual freewill.

Why bother with philosophy when you have the Scripture? Look at Genesis 2:16:

"And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden"

 

[Chany]

Please read the section of Thomas that I mentioned earlier, if you haven't already.

Nothing you said means that free will is not free. Just because events have happened to us, even mental events, it does not mean we are slaves to those events. As I said before, they may limit the breadth of our choices, but we are still free to choose within that breadth.



Have you been reading a lot of Sartre?

I would agree with you if the mind didn't develop and was static against the events. The main part of my argument is that the mind develops from a starting point into what it is today by going through different experiences which ultimately create it into what it is.

Choice is determined by the following equation:

(A+B+C)+D+E=F

A. The starting disposition of the mind. In this case man is a rational being who will intrinsically decide to follow what he perceives to be the ultimate good.

B. The past experiences and outcomes the man has already experienced.

C. Acquired knowledge. (I may combine B and C, as they are the sum of the person's past development, or what he brings to the situation).

D. The current cause the man is dealing with and the facts he knows about that cause.

E. Divine intervention, ranging anywhere from grace to temporarily changing a person's mind to affect the outcome of the event. Keep in mind that accepting God's grace is counted in the equation.

F. The reaction to the current cause; the ultimate outcome. This can be a physical action, like running instead of walking, or a mere intellectual/emotional reaction, such as this is bad as opposed to good.

 

[Chany]

Why bother with philosophy when you have the Scripture? Look at Genesis 2:16:

"And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden"

Because reason and faith cannot, ultimately, conflict. If conflict exists, it means one of the two are wrong. Either:

My reasoning is incorrect,

or,

The Church's is incorrect.

I normally would give over to faith and continue to search for an answer. However, when there's not an answer for one of the foundations of Christianity, there's a problem.

 

[LoAmmi]

What you're saying is that our decisions are based upon previous experience, the way we think, and such so that means we have a lack of free will?

 

[Albion]

What you're saying is that our decisions are based upon previous experience, the way we think, and such so that means we have a lack of free will?

That is worth some consideration, wouldn't you agree?

 

[LoAmmi]

That is worth some consideration, wouldn't you agree?

It could be, but I think it is kind of flawed. We are made up of our past decisions, but it is also possible to stop a trend. Someone that overspends could decide not to overspend. Now, it could be argued that forces are compelling them to that decision, but it could also just be an internal change.
It's making things out to be a bit too robotic.


How about when someone writes a book and creates a whole new world? Or when someone creates new music? It seems unlikely that those things can only be the product of a mind that is bound to the decisions of the past and the influence of outsiders.

 

[Albion]

It could be, but I think it is kind of flawed. We are made up of our past decisions, but it is also possible to stop a trend. Someone that overspends could decide not to overspend. Now, it could be argued that forces are compelling them to that decision, but it could also just be an internal change.
It's making things out to be a bit too robotic.

No, I don't think that's it. There are patterns of behavior that people do manage to change, but addictions are many, and quite a few of our patterns of behavior are ones that we think are perfectly correct such that we don't think there's any need to change them.

We like to say that we are free agents and can choose right or wrong, choose God or reject him and his grace, but that works best in a hypothetical world, not the one we live in.

Consider...

Doctrine is thought by almost everyone here to be important to salvation, even to those who think that all we need is a one or two doctrines--one God or belief in Jesus, for example. Yet there is almost no doctrine that all of us here on CF can agree to, and we're certainly more attuned to these things than the average person. A scad of factors play upon us all when it comes to decision-making, including intelligence, access to information, environment, and the time of our birth. Obviously, the world would look different to a man of the 10th century than to one living now.

The idea that everyone has really free will is dubious, and the facts suggest it...if we only stop to look at them.

 

[LoAmmi]

Actually, you and I are going to be even further apart on doctrine than you think.

Perhaps we shouldn't view free will in our actions but in our thoughts. In my thoughts, I am not bound by social norms or consequences for actions. I can think freely about whatever crosses my mind. In there I may be limited by intelligence or information, but I think our minds show our free will. If I spend days thinking about a decision, running through the possibilities, and then acting upon that thought, how could it not be free will?

To ask another question, what would free look like if we don't have it?

 

[Albion]

Actually, you and I are going to be even further apart on doctrine than you think.

Perhaps we shouldn't view free will in our actions but in our thoughts. In my thoughts, I am not bound by social norms or consequences for actions. I can think freely about whatever crosses my mind. In there I may be limited by intelligence or information, but I think our minds show our free will. If I spend days thinking about a decision, running through the possibilities, and then acting upon that thought, how could it not be free will?

To ask another question, what would free look like if we don't have it?

You don't know that you have freewill; you assume that you do.That's because you think you are weighing alternatives and coming up with decisions that other people would disagree with. That doesn't prove that you have free will, and especially not as it relates to understanding and accepting God.

 

[Nick T]

[Staff Edit]

However it is important to remember that those saints who bore witness to the biblical truth that few will pass through the narrow gates did not then conclude that God was not all-loving in his gift of free will towards mankind, as you seem to do.

Those same saints spoke endlessly on the infinite goodness of God, the joy experienced by the soul who seeks him, of the fact that he created man for salvation not damnation, and of the infinite grace and mercy that God pours out through his Church. They did not claim to follow a bleak and gloomy path and ask if only God had been loving enough to create us without free will- rather they constantly thanked him for his infinite love for mankind and cried out Glory to your dispensation, oh Christ!

It is important to note that a sin consistently warned against by these saints (but unfortunately often ignored by modern Christians) was the grave sin of despair, through which the Devil endangers many by convincing them of the apparent "hopelessness" of salvation. Statements to the effect that salvation is so infinitely small a possibility that existence is a trap and it is better never to have existed (which also I think falls into the sin of pride, since clearly God thinks it is better that you exist and considers salvation a big enough possibility as to create you for it) seem in my humble opinion to stray dangerously close to this sin.

In short I think that if we are truly interested in following in the path of these holy saints we must acknowledge the fact that few will find salvation and use this to wake ourselves up out of sloth and constantly seek Christ. We must imitate these saints in their assurance of the infinite love towards mankind of God, which has conquered death, and above all else avoid the sin of Despair which leads only to perdition and blasphemous doubt of the omnibenevolence of God

 

[elopez]

Because reason and faith cannot, ultimately, conflict. If conflict exists, it means one of the two are wrong. Either:

My reasoning is incorrect,

or,

The Church's is incorrect.

I normally would give over to faith and continue to search for an answer. However, when there's not an answer for one of the foundations of Christianity, there's a problem.

You were given Scripture that indicates you're incorrect. You did not address that Scripture, or it's interpretation. So I would think your reasoning is incorrect.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

A couple years ago, I read this book;

Who's in Charge?:

Free Will and the Science of the Brain, by Michael S. Gazzaniga.

Dr Gazzaniga is considered the father of cognitive neuroscience.


I got interested because a debate with some atheist, they contend that free will is the invention of religion, and they base their rejection of free-will on the science of "cause an effect," i.e. every effect had a cause and this includes our actions.

Dr Gazzaniga, rejects this and shows why it's non-sense.

If it were true, we'd have to close all the jails, for people are doing time for crimes they committed which were not their fault. A biological cause in their brains created an effect which forced them to make the decisions they made.

Jim

 

[Albion]

The mistake with that is that while we do have some ability to judge, choose, and make decisions, this does not mean that all of our actions are freely made.

A couple years ago, I read this book;



Dr Gazzaniga is considered the father of cognitive neuroscience.


I got interested because a debate with some atheist, they contend that free will is the invention of religion, and they base their rejection of free-will on the science of "cause an effect," i.e. every effect had a cause and this includes our actions.

Dr Gazzaniga, rejects this and shows why it's non-sense.

If it were true, we'd have to close all the jails, for people are doing time for crimes they committed which were not their fault. A biological cause in their brains created an effect which forced them to make the decisions they made.

Jim