OK - Do You Believe in Free Will?

[leftyladyfrommo]

Because I don't. I think the future of all man-kind was laid down by the those who set the wheels turning in the beginning.

I know that most religions teach free will. But I just don't see it.

[Maeve]

1. So...you were eternally destined to post that?

And I had no choice but to type this? The universe is a wind-up toy and there is no choice, no decisions, no blame, no honor?

[Matilda]

2. This is a topic that has exercised the minds of theologians

for nearly two thousand years!

I've just started learning about the teachings of Pelagius, and he might interest you. I don't
have much knowledge yet, but he's a fascinating man to study. There's not a tremendous amount
of literature on him because much was lost (accidentally on purpose probably, because he was
opposed to the teachings of Augustine, and ended up being accused of heresy).

For myself, I believe that opportunites and challenges that we meet are predetermined - I don't
believe in coincidence at all. But how we meet those challenges is up to us - there's always
a choice, and which way we go then determines what other opportunities or tests will await us.

That's only my opinion, but I think that to believe in predestination would be to lose all hope.
For me, it's essential to believe that I can change myself, my life, and what I might mean to other
people if I try. I'd hate to think that no matter what effort I make, it won't make any difference
in the end.

[CBHagman]

5. I'm still struggling with that, Matilda.

I've never heard anyone express it precisely as you have, that "opportunities and challengse that we meet are predetermined."

One of my friends from university always used to talk about the "perfect" will of God, as in praying that one will find out exactly what God wants us to do.

Another friend of mine believed that certain things that happened to one (for example, not being able to marry when it one's desire) were not necessarily God's will.

And another friend, a Catholic, always talks about the "luck factor."

The most troubling spiritual question I've always faced is the fact that evil and suffering occur in this world. Some of that can be explained by human will, but the fact that innocent people suffer bothers me. My friends who believe in reincarnation, of course, think that is all worked out through the various lives.

Sigh. Now I am at the point where I believe God does give us choices and that maybe pleasing God doesn't involve just hitting the right choice or the right answer, but that the right thing to do may fit several choices. But for all that I pray for guidance and take certain actions that I hope will lead me in the right way, I struggle with it all and wonder if I'm missing the right path.

[Maeve]

6. Maybe the point isn't the answer as much as the way we handle it

Life as improvisation--you take what comes and do your best. Act with as much thoughtfulness and consideration as possible, look out for everyone's better interests (I say better, not best, because we can't see everything).

I particularly like this, taken from a page about Julian of Norwich:

She describes seeing God holding a tiny thing in his hand, like a small brown nut, which seemed so fragile and insignificant that she wondered why it did not crumble before her eyes. She understood that the thing was the entire created universe, which is as nothing compared to its Creator, and she was told, "God made it, God loves it, God keeps it."

She was concerned that sometimes when we are faced wiith a difficult moral decision, it seems that no matter which way we decide, we will have acted from motives that are less then completely pure, so that neither decision is defensible. She finally wrote: "It is enough to be sure of the deed. Our courteous Lord will deign to redeem the motive."

A matter that greatly troubled her was the fate of those who through no fault of their own had never heard the Gospel. She never received a direct answer to her questions about them, except to be told that whatever God does is done in Love, and therefore "that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/05/08.html

[Matilda]

9. I think there's a case for reincarnation.

And the suffering of innocents that you talk about is a case in point. I've often wondered why,
if we have only one life, I was fortunate enough to be born into a middle-class white Australian
home and not a Jew in Nazi Germany, or an Arab in Palestine, or even an Aborigine in Australia,
where my life choices would be much narrower and my opportunities few. It seems unfair that
millions are born into suffering, poverty, war and disease through no fault of their own, and
others have unlimited opportunity, all because of an accident of birth.

Of course, man is responsible for the suffering, but what did the innocent child do to deserve this?
Reincarnation does supply an answer that makes sense, and the only way in which I think it could
contradict Church teaching is in the area of the resurrection of the body - we'd be left to wonder
then which body would resurrect? But Paul (somewhere) said that the resurrection is spiritual, not
of the body, and that makes sense too. I'm certainly inclined to think that there won't be a bodily
resurrection, and who would really want that - especially if they died from a disfiguring or wasting
disease, or an accident that resulted in the loss of a limb - it's really quite awful to contemplate.

Reincarnation can't be proven, Shirley MacLaine notwithstanding, but we can't prove anything about
life after death in whatever form it might be. We have to take it all on faith. But reincarnation
is a tenet of a number of religions, and it does provide a certain rationale for what appears to
be a general unfairness in life that otherwise defies comprehension.

[regnaD kciN]

13. That's one reason why I'm grateful for Calvin...

Before he came along, predestination was a tenet of Augustine's theology (which, as I've sometimes claimed, was more often than not his psychology writ large), and mentioned with approval in several sections of Aquinas's "Summa Theologicae."

Once it became established as one of the foremost "Reformed" doctrines, it just sort of vanished from Roman Catholic theology. Thanks, John! ;-)

P.S.: I've read some Pelagius, and like what I've seen so far. IMHO, he got one of the original "raw deals."

[Beer Snob-50]

3. first off welcome to du

next, so you believe than that many people were put on this earth to suffer? we don't have a choice regarding dieting, whether we want to buy that revolver and shoot out all the people in the 7/11?

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. Read too much Omar Khyayam as a child

He didn't believe in free will, either. I will have to post one of his sayins on the subject. It's a really interesting debate.

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. Sufferrng just seems to be the way of this world.

Most people on this planet live in poverty. We just don't realize it because we are so protected from it by our society. We just don't realize what living in the rest of the world is like.

[Beer Snob-50]

8. But suffering comes from free will

maybe not the sufferers but from someones. An example is racism. Blacks for centuries have been prosecuted because of their color. I don't think that God would purposely keep down an entire race for his/her own perverse pleasure. It was due to the free will of a group of people that God's greatest commandment (Love one another as I have loved you) was broken.

Many in poverty are there due to drug use. That is free will.

[demosincebirth]

10. "Mans inhumanity to man" is mans free will.

[Matilda]

11. Free Will = Responsibility

Would it not be fair to say that if we lack free will, we are also absolved from responsility for
our actions? We could simply blame all wrongdoings on original sin, or our predetermined fate.

But if we have free will, that means we choose to do right or wrong, and therefore we accept moral
responsibility for our choices, whatever they may be.

I do think one of the modern ills in society is not accepting responsibility - whatever you've done,
blame it on your parents, your teachers, the government, or God. But we grow only by accepting
our mistakes and our wrongdoing, and trying to amend our lives, not by blaming any other entity.
So it follows that in order to grow into the best human beings we can be, we must take responsibility
for what we do, and that involves exercising our judgment and our free will.

[demosincebirth]

12. You are right,

I also believe that the root cause of all evil in this world is selfishness and self centerness which equates into what humans do to each other.

[Dorian Gray]

14. I believe that God loves us,

and I believe it would be impossible for God to love us if we were automatons with no will to follow our own path. We would be little more than robots, without complex emotions and spiritual capabilities.

It was His ultimate love for us that gave us Free Will. How could He claim to love us if He would not allow us to choose whether we love Him?