Topical Index

Free Will

... the only person who has ever lived a perfect human life is Jesus Christ.
God didn't create us with a tendency to sin, originally.
You are probably correct in thinking that if God had created us as automata we would not be feeling bad about that, but we would not be loving other humans or loving God in any meaningful way either.
Human free will does not mean that God never intervenes in human experience.
Are you trying to say that taking away human freedom would not be evil? I doubt that you really mean that.
I agree that God did know in advance that His free creatures would rebel and disobey ...
God knows the future, yet He still gives us freedom to make our own choices.
I think we agreed that choosing to love and choosing to believe are not quick, easy choices, like deciding to switch a light bulb on, but that does not mean there is no choice involved at all.
Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden by God's choice.
I think you don't understand the nature of the choice that the first humans made when they fell into sin. Let me try to explain.
God did accept the possibility that some people would be condemned, but He did not make that possibility inevitable. He also made it possible for His creatures to choose to obey Him.
The point is that humans aren't robots.
You certainly are not alone in believing that we humans think the way we do because something beyond our control caused us to think that way. In today's world ...
God's original creation was entirely perfect ...
If God had not allowed Adam and Eve to make a perfectly free choice about whether they would love and obey Him or reject Him, then they would have been either robots, slaves, or compulsive neurotics ...
When God created Adam and Eve He made them entirely innocent.
There's a huge difference between making it possible for others to do evil by giving His creatures freedom, which God did, as opposed to creating evil directly, which God did not and does not do.
... People were perfect and free in the beginning, free to love and obey God, and also free to turn away from Him.
God didn't create imperfection.
... God is the source of everything that is good ...
When I said that God "does permit others to do evil" I did not intend to imply that He approves of evil or that He considers it necessary.
No one would love or admire or worship a God who enjoyed watching others suffer.
Do you mean that you would like for God to let us choose, for instance, what kinds of sports we prefer to play or to watch ...
Do you really know anyone who has never done anything wrong?
... in order to remove all evil from earth, God would have to take free will away from ALL of us. All of us have misused it.
How good do people have to be before you would say that God should help them?
... God can not stand to look upon evil ...
... we humans are so caught up in this thing called time that we can't imagine what it would be like to live outside of it.
It is helpful to compare two well known translations of Isaiah 45:7 ...
We need the facts of physics and biology because if physical objects did not function in a predictable manner, the world would be chaotic and unlivable.
... God permits evil to happen but He never causes it. He gives us the freedom to choose to do good or to do evil.
It takes more than psychological restraint to stop the kind of evil that caused the Holocaust.
God never does anything contrary to His own nature. He is entirely good, so He never does evil.
I believe that God permits evil to exist by giving freedom to His creatures ...
Free will ... doesn't mean that we can do absolutely anything we want to without suffering any adverse consequences.
In a democracy, citzens are free persons, but that freedom does not give them the right to place themselves above the law.
God created humans as free persons, not as slaves.
A human society with no laws or constraints of any kind would be in chaos. That would be anarchy, not freedom.
Your effort to blame God for the faults of human beings reduces all human beings to the level of machines.
... trying so hard to blame God for something that isn't His fault.
If you consider the whole Bible, not just isolated parts of it taken out of context, you will find that the God described there is not a tyrant. He sets us free.
Having free will does not mean that we can do anything we feel like doing and get by with it, because ...
... to reconcile the ideas of God's sovereignty and human free will ...
... I thought I had answered this by saying that religion is not tyranny when people freely choose to accept it.
... Hell exists because both demons and humans chose not to love and follow God.
... God did not let Satan out of prison and invite him to tempt Adam and Eve. Rather, Satan rebelled against God by Satan's own choice.
The prisoner in your story had been sentenced to life in prison ...
... If freedom is what you want, the Lord is the only one who can really give you any.
God gave us the ability to do good. He also gave us the ability to commit sin. Does that make God responsible for the evil in the world?
I think that if God had created us without the ability to sin, He would have made all of us slaves instead of children of a loving Father.
If the idea of free will doesn't make sense to you, consider the alternative.
... Does this make God responsible for how we use that freedom? I don't think so.
No, we did not thwart God's plan.
Freedom gives life a purpose.
... God does not do evil Himself, but He does give others the freedom to do it if they choose to. Does that make God responsible for the evil? I don't think so. ...
Freedom, as I define it, is the ablility to make choices that are not pre-determined by factors beyond our control.
How can you claim that we would still have any freedom if there were no God? ... God ... is the One who makes true freedom possible ...
Does Christianity stifle intellectual freedom, or does it provide the basis that makes intellectual freedom possible?
Then there is the issue of intellectual freedom ...
How can God be omnipotent yet not include both good and evil?