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Chaz Finney
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 102

Posted 5/26/2010 11:40 PM (GMT -6)

Short post;

I have been talking about Aquinas' views of free will and foreknowledge on one of the Catholic BB's and my thinking has driven me to wonder can we ever be "free" so long as He is the Creator and we are the creature". If you think about it, true freedom of the will would demand that our will is beyond God's control; and I can see God creating us and angels with this freedom. This would explain the fall of satan and man and not put the blame on God; it would also preclude the necessity for God to be ignorant of the future because if every single possible world were created by our free wills which are apart from or above God's will; then it doesn't really matter what He knew since He doesn't have control of our will in ANY possible world and the events of the world were driven by our freedom and not His.

BUT....ultimately so long as we are mere creatures, and our wills were 'given to us' from the will of God; I don't think that we can ever be "free" for it seems to demand that we would have and existence apart from God's will and we know this is not possible. Even Paul wrote "in Him we live and move and have our being" So as long as we are His creatures and He is the Creator, we cannot attain "true free will" and have to settle for some of God's control over our wills. I think the answer to the age old dilemma of foreknowledge and free will is not a matter of logic but of ontology.

Enjoy the summer,

Chaz

Similitude
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 6/5/2010 11:30 AM (GMT -6)

God has a real "control" on our free-will. He can either deprive us of it at any time (e.g., by unconsciousness) or "limit" it by imparting to us a divine nature. You're making this too hard, Chad.

What is certainly the case is that God RISKS His own suffering by giving humans the kind and degree of free-will He has given us. But why is divine risk unphilosophical or unscriptural? Not seeing it.

Chaz Finney
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 102

Posted 6/5/2010 12:19 PM (GMT -6)

I suppose we have to define exactly what free will entails before we frame our arguments. Personally I think that so long as we have the freedom to sin or not sin (~sin) when presented with temptation; this is the extent of free will that only matters to God. We of course are in a world where many causal infulences are being presented to our minds and whether we take every thought captive and subject it to reflection and judgement before our act of volition or if we act in a brute fashion is sometimes of no consequence in the free will debate. Again I think all that really matters in life is "are we free enough to choose heaven or hell". Beyond that all arguments are superfulous.

I suppose the simplist argument for free will is this:

a. God is just

b. With ability come accountability

c. A just God will not hold anyone accountable for what they are not able to do or not do

:: God will judge us for our actions, hence we have enough ability (freedom) over our lives to be held accountable

Post Edited (Chaz Finney) : 6/5/2010 12:28:33 PM (GMT-5)

Similitude
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 6/5/2010 1:59 PM (GMT -6)

So here's the dilemma. If that syllogism is false, it is false because free-will is an illusion, best I can tell. But if free-will is an illusion, we're not designed to apprehend in the first place, best I can tell. However narrow in range volition is, it can't be illusory if, in fact, we're designed to apprehend. Right?

Chaz Finney
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2008
Total Posts : 102

Posted 6/5/2010 2:13 PM (GMT -6)

We need to agree to the presupposition that God is just and will not hold us accountable for things that we have no ability to respond to. So if we are not free to do A or ~A, God will not hold us responsible. Since God will judge all men for either accepting Christ or Denying Christ (or accepting whatever revelation God reveals to that persons or denying it); we can assume that we have the ability to freely choose Christ for our salvation. This is the decision that matters in life. As Solomon said all that matters is that we keep God's commandments. If we don't have the ability to keep or not keep His commandments, then a just God as we have presumed cannot judge us.

That's all I am saying - in short "we have enough free will to be judged by God" and sent to heaven or hell. I suppose this is a simplistic pragmatic approach

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 6/5/2010 2:18 PM (GMT -6)

Chaz Finney said...
Short post;

Mary was truely free to say "Let it be" when she said yest to God.

God foreknew, not forced her. And in all of human history everything led up to that.

(o)

Similitude
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 6/5/2010 3:24 PM (GMT -6)

Chaz: If we don't have the ability to keep or not keep His commandments, then a just God as we have presumed cannot judge us.

Jeff: That's so much free-will I don't see why would assume that much else we intuitively think involves freedom doesn't in fact do so. Regardless, God can control it in the two ways I mentioned above.

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