Jamie_L

I've gone around and around with folks on this several times - usually while hijacking some other thread. So, I thought I'd start my own thread.

The nutshell version: Can an omnipotent god create a being with Free Will who will never choose to commit evil?

For the moment, lets ignore creative ideas like changing the physical laws of the universe to make evil choices impossible.

My thinking is that by definition, a person with free will can choose good over evil each time he has a choice. If he does that every time, he will never choose evil. Let's call this person who never chooses evil, Person G. When creating people, an omnipotent God must, by definition of creation, make choices about what kind of person this individual will be. He could make Charles Manson or he could make Jimmy Carter. Or, he could make the morally pure person who would never choose evil, Person G. If God makes Person G, has God robbed Person G of his free will to choose evil?

Most theists I've had this discussion with say creating Person G, by definition, denies him free will. However, does creating Jimmy Carter instead of Charles Manson rob Jimmy Carter of his free will to commit atrocious murders?

Suppose God wants to populate a desert island. For one spot on the island, he chooses to create me. Being omniscient and all, God knows that when he creates me with my particular personality, I will never murder anyone else on the island. When I am created, do I have free will to murder?

Or, translated, if God decides to make a morally pure person, that person will not have free will. This doesn't make sense to me.

I say, being morally pure does not rob you of free will. You still have it within your power to choose evil, you just never will. Whether or not you are created that way doesn't enter into the equation. The choice is still there.

Jamie

Proxima Centauri

I'm not a Christain but I'll try and answer it the way some Christains would. God's alleged omnipotence only involves being able to do what is logically possible.
A person with free will who will never ever do evil, (is incapable of doing evil) is a logical contradiction.
Its logically impossible. Therefore God cannot do it.

spurly

You propose an interesting theory.

Can an omnipotent God create someone with Free Will who will never choose to do evil instead of good? No. For you see, in so doing he has taken the Free Will away from that person. If they can not choose evil, logic says that they don't have the free will to do so.

God's creation was more dangerous, but it was the only way true love could exist. It led to God's heart breaking time and time agains throughout history, but it also led to moments of extreme joy as people chose to love him out of their own free will.

Kevin

Jamie_L

Well, lets look at the spectrum as well as the extremes.

If God creates a person who will choose Good more often than Evil, does that person have free will?

A person must have reasons for choosing between good and evil. Otherwise, the choice is arbitrary. People choose good because they want to.

But, that's the free will dilema, isn't it? If I want to choose good, and I do choose good, did I ever have the free will to choose evil at all?

What you are proposing is that if God makes a person who wants to do good all the time, that person does not have free will. So what is his other choice?

Make a person who wants to do evil more than Good? Well, that's not free will either, by the above definition.

Make a person who wants good and evil equally? Then how does he decide? By flipping a coin? Is that what free will is? Arbitrary decision making?

In order for Free Will to be a viable concept at all, we can't say that desiring a particular choice preculdes the freedom of that choice. Yet that's exactly what this resonse does. It says a person who wants Good more than Evil, in every situation, has no free will. It says no one can have free will, because they are slaves to their desires. Unless, of course, they have no desires.

Jamie

Ab_Normal

If I understand you correctly, the whole point of the existence of evil is so we can choose to love God without coercion. I do not equate not loving god with evil. From personal experience: I don't love god. I don't hate god. I don't think it exists. Can you see the difference? Are you saying that I'm evil because I don't love god? I don't get it.

lpetrich

My solution to the free-will conundrum is to note that the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ had taught that one ought to remove body parts that cause one to commit sins. Thus, if free will causes one to commit sins, then it ought to be gotten rid of.

Matthew 5
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Matthew 18
8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Mark 9
43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.[1] 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.[2] 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,

[1] 9:43 Some manuscripts: out, 44 where / " 'their worm does not die, / and the fire is not quenched.'
[2] 9:45 Some manuscripts: hell, 46 where / " 'their worm does not die, / and the fire is not quenched.'

(translation: NIV)

Bree

So you're saying that Jesus (who supposedly never sinned - EVER) chose not to sin?

Well, I guess your answer would depend on whether you believed Jesus was completely sin free - or not.

christ-on-a-stick

Spurly,

2 questions.

1) If it's not "possible", how do you explain angels? You could say
that they don't have free will, but that would contradict the
free will that Lucifer had to rebel against God. If you say they
DO have free will but the ones other than Lucifer and his gang
choose to never do evil, you contradict yourself.

2) Free Will vs. Original Sin.

If you postulate that I have "original sin" and WILL do evil
because of it, then I no longer have the FREE WILL to do
only good.

You say that a being who cannot choose to do evil does not
have free will. How can a being that cannot choose NOT to
do evil have free will???

Biff the unclean

Jesus could be said never to have committed sin/evil because in this case sin/evil is something that is decided on by God. Jesus, being God, could do whatever he pleased and therefore be following Gods will.
Since God in this story is the Creator of everything it is he who made the rules. It is he who created the category of sin/evil.

You never hear the argument that free will lets man choose between good, evil and blidith. That is because there is no third category. No one is concerned about falling into blidith because it wasn't created, it isn't even an option.
So if God could make a world where man has free will without the option of blidith he could have made different options from good and evil too.

spurly

Do angels have free will? According the Scripture I would say no. But I would also say that at some time in the ancient past God gave them a window of free will. They could choose to love and serve him, or they could choose to follow Satan. Their station in the spiritual universe now is a result of the choice that they made then.

I say this because at some time in the past it seems they did have free will. However, they don't anymore.

How does this apply to humans? I don't know. Angels are not humans. Humans will not be angels in eternal life.

Quote:

Free will vs. Original Sin. If you postulate that I have "original sin" and WILL do evil because of it, then I no longer have the FREE WILL to do only good. You say that a being who cannot choose to do evil does not have free will. How can a being that cannot choose NOT to do evil have free will???

I have never been an advocate of the original sin theory. So saying that I postulate that is wrong in the first place. I don't postulate original sin.

However, I will say that we were all created with the ability to choose to do good or evil. Most of us chose to do at least one thing that goes against the nature of God (i.e., one evil thing). The only ones who ever existed who never chose evil were Jesus Christ, and those who die very, very, young before they understand good and evil.

We do have free will, even though most people use that free will to make some choice against God at one time or another. This does not negate the argument of Free Will. The people still make choices to love God and follow him, or to walk away from his love.


Bree said:
Yes Bree, that is exactly what I am saying. It is clear in Scripture that Jesus was tempted in every way like we were. He was given flesh and blood to identify with us, and in identifying with us, he identified with our temptation. The difference was that he, unlike Adam and unlike us, chose to walk away from the temptation and keep his love relationship with God in tact. He saw every snare set before him and stepped over them or around them. That is why he could be our perfect sacrifice. His love for the Father led him to not do anything that would break that relationship.

Kevin