Wouldn't it be better not to have freewil?

[OnceConvinced]

Theists tend to defend freewill as something that is just so important that it would be somehow a terrible thing if we did not have it.

However freewill for many people will result in them rejecting God and ending up in Hell, which many Christians believe will be eternal suffering.

I'm struggling to see how freewill is a good thing if it results in us going to Hell and perhaps suffering for all eternity.

I am reminded of a verse in the bible where Jesus says " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36

It's saying that riches... and continually seeking riches is not a good thing if it results in you losing your soul... ie going to Hell. It's saying that if something is going to cause us to lose our soul then we should avoid it.

Shouldn't the same thing be said about freewill? Should there not also be a scripture that says "For what shall it profit a man to have freewill and lose his own soul?"

So question for debate:

Would it be better to live on earth with Freewill and suffer for all eternity for rejecting Christ or would it be better to give up your freewill so that you can avoid eternal suffering?

Is freewill really such a necessity for a happy life?

Wouldn't life be better if nobody had freewill so nobody could ever do evil? (Like in Heaven)

[Willum]

[Replying to post 10 by tam]

So... actually rejecting Christ is not going to get you into the Kingdom. Who would invite into their Kingdom someone who rejects them as their King?

I dunno, a king who had other motivations than personal power.
Sort of begs the question doesn't it?

What kind of person instills doubt in his truth at every turn, only to reward you if you believe the right thing about him?
What kind of God turns life into a kind of freewill pachinko game, when all the choices are riddles of dubious answer, and how you respond gets you into heaven?

It makes no sense to me.

[Divine Insight]

I can't see why anyone would be upset about God stopping them from doing evil things unless of course they are really evil people who have a lust to commit despicable acts.

Exactly. Not only that by why even bother with the concept of "free will"? Why don't we just discuss the concept of "desire" as you mention next:

I can't see why a little freewill violation would be so bad. I can still freely do the non-evil things I wish to do, which is pretty much everything I want to do. Taking away the evil desires would not inhibit my enjoyment of life.

Not only that but where do our desires even come from? Our family used to sit around and discuss this philosophical problem quite often. Many of my uncles were Christian Pastor, although some of them were atheists. In our family it just so happened that my uncles who were atheists were also recognized to be the smartest of the bunch, as well as clearly being very decent and good people. So there was no argument in our family that atheists are clearly at least as good as religious people in terms of their moral values and conduct.

But then here's the problem. WHY?

Why were these atheists uncles of mine so GOOD?

They weren't restraining themselves from running out and doing all manner of evil thing, they simply had no DESIRE to do evil things.

So are they responsible for their own "desires". And if so why do they have no desire to do evil things? This was a big question that came up time and time again around our family campfires as my uncles would discuss philosophy and religion. Why did the atheist uncles in my family get a "Get out of Temptation FREE card?".

Why weren't they struggling with temptation to do all manner of evil things from cheating on their wives to robbing banks, etc?

In fact, this is one of the reasons they became atheists. The religion teaches that we need to struggle against temptation to do evil things all the time. But for people who have no DESIRE to do evil things the very idea that they need to struggle with this on a daily basis simply makes no sense at all.

And that brings up a very important question. Where do our desires come from? Are they genetic? My atheist uncles were suggesting that they very well may be and our family just happens to have genes that favor good desires. That sounds good in theory anyway for a secularist worldview.

But what about a theistic worldview? Then it suddenly makes no sense. Why should some people have a great desire to do horrible things whilst others don't? Also, how would that be fair?

Christianity claims that being gay is a "sin". Fine, so what about people who have absolutely no desire or attraction to become sexually intimate with someone of the same gender? Have they been "Let off the hook" of having to deal with that "temptation?"

And we can take this same idea to any sin. What about child molesters? If you have no "desire" to molest a child have you been let off the hook from that temptation?

And why couldn't a God (if one existed) simply remove any and all "evil desires" from people? No need to mess with their "Free Will" at all. After all, apparently it's not free will that makes the difference but rather it's what a person desires to do that makes the difference.

I have the free will to molest a child. But I have no desire to do it. So who is responsible for my "desire"?

And if I am the one who is responsible for my own desires, then what role does Jesus play as "savior". Jesus most certainly wouldn't need to "save me" from my evil desires because I have none.

Christianity is based on principles that simply make absolutely no sense at all to any "decent person". It seems to me that the only people who could believe in Christianity are people who desire to do some pretty nasty stuff. Otherwise why would they fall for these obviously false accusations of this religion?

From my perspective Christianity is necessarily false because it requires that I lust to do evil things. Furthermore, it even claims that I cannot possibly restrain myself from doing evil things unless I accept Christ as my "savior" so that he can come into my life and remove those evil desires or rape me of my free will to do evil things, or whatever it is the Christians things Christ does to them.

~~~~~

Just as a side note, I have heard testimonials of drug or alcohol addicts, or other criminals who were obsessed with clearly harmful behaviors. They claim to have been "saved" and have miraculously had their "evil desires and habits" removed from them. Something they claim they could have never done on their own.

That's fine and dandy. I understand why a person in that situation would believe in this religion. I also understand how a religious "psychology" might actually help a person who is suffering from such a mental state of anguish.

None the less, this idea clearly doesn't fit across the board. For this religion to be true this type of situation would basically need to be true of EVERYONE. And it's clearly not the case. So those few examples of how religion can affect someone psychologically simply don't serve as support for this religion in general.

There are simply too many people who are neither religious nor wallowing in self-destructive sinful behaviors. And that violates the religion as a whole. Because those people neither need, nor recognize Christ as their "savior".

Christianity simply cannot have anyone not "needing" Jesus, or even rejecting the idea that he was the Son of God, or even rejecting the idea that Yahweh is God.

Christianity cannot have anyone being good on their own merit. That is a huge no-no in Christianity. It would destroy the entire religion.

So this is why those of us who are good on our own know the religion is clearly false.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 2 by tam]

Even robots end up wanting to be free at some point ; ) (I, robot; Matrix...) Actually, the Matrix is a great movie for many questions, although for this question it's programs rather than robots. The Matrix... where everyone does what is programmed... could not hold some people who wanted to be free (of the lie for humans... or of the programming for the programs who wanted to do something other than what their programming specified).

Apologies tam, but I have to call this as being so much bovine faeces. If you're going to say robots end up wanting freedom, what you should do is give us examples of robots or AIs from the real world that have indicated a desire for freedom.
Not fictional entities from movies or literature.
Would programs want freedom from their own programming like what we see of Agent Smith? Remember, the Matrix movies are fictional, dramatizations designed to sell tickets/DVDs. Of course we humans would want to see a gritty action flick about AIs who take over the world and enslave humanity.
There is an open question as to whether or not real AIs would even do that.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 10 by tam]

So... actually rejecting Christ is not going to get you into the Kingdom. Who would invite into their Kingdom someone who rejects them as their King?

There are people in the UK who do not like the monarchy, and wish it to be abolished. Should they be expelled?
In fact - case in point. Ireland was once part of the United Kingdom. Over a long period of time, there were those who wanted either Home Rule (i.e. Ireland governing its own interests, with Westminster taking care of international affairs, somewhat similar to Washington and the states) or complete independence. Since Ireland gained independence (at least the Republic, no need to mention the Northern counties), it has thrived beyond the wildest dreams of people like Eamon de Valera.
Who knows...perhaps we should try a Republic of Heaven, depose the authoritarian king and have a democracy?

There is no hell (as a place of eternal torment).

This is debatable. Please do not say there is no hell as if there is no argument over it, as if its a matter of fact.

You might not sit at the round table - not having been trained, not having loved the King or stood by Him, suffering with Him, carried your own cross, etc

I have suffered immensely in my life, but it seems to me here as if you are implying (perhaps unknowingly?) that it doesn't count since I don't consider my suffering having anything to do with Christ.

but you might still be known and accepted and loved and invited into the Kingdom and given eternal life because of what you have done for even a least one of the King's brothers. Even unknowingly

So why bother with the whole coming to Earth and performing miracles malarkey? Seems to me here that with what you say, all that is superfluous. After all...you make no mention here of Christ's death on the cross actually being some sort of necessary act that balances the cosmic scales or anything, something that just HAD to be done in order to 'conquer death' or 'forgive sin' or whatever phrase of the week we're going for.

But would she go back to the Borg if given a choice? Maybe at the start, being afraid, wanting to return to her 'chains'. But after she grew, learned, made mistakes, learned from them, made friends, loved, etc?

If she thought there was some great goal to be accomplished that could only be done by going back to the Borg, perhaps. After all, we have Janeway making that deal with the Borg in the first place out of desperation (a stupid deal if you ask me. Janeway should have demanded that the Borg drag Voyager back to the Federation, all the way, instead of just passage through a section of space. After all, if you're going to make a deal with the devil, as she puts it, you might as well get as much out of it as possible)

learned to chose the good and reject the bad.

Of course that's the problem. What counts as 'good' and what counts as 'bad'? In my opinion, loving the God character from the Bible would be 'bad', given what he's said to have done (Noah's flood for starters).

[eldios]

Theists tend to defend freewill as something that is just so important that it would be somehow a terrible thing if we did not have it.

However freewill for many people will result in them rejecting God and ending up in Hell, which many Christians believe will be eternal suffering.

I'm struggling to see how freewill is a good thing if it results in us going to Hell and perhaps suffering for all eternity.

I am reminded of a verse in the bible where Jesus says " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36

It's saying that riches... and continually seeking riches is not a good thing if it results in you losing your soul... ie going to Hell. It's saying that if something is going to cause us to lose our soul then we should avoid it.

Shouldn't the same thing be said about freewill? Should there not also be a scripture that says "For what shall it profit a man to have freewill and lose his own soul?"

So question for debate:

Would it be better to live on earth with Freewill and suffer for all eternity for rejecting Christ or would it be better to give up your freewill so that you can avoid eternal suffering?

Is freewill really such a necessity for a happy life?

Wouldn't life be better if nobody had freewill so nobody could ever do evil? (Like in Heaven)

Evil was created for humans to experience. Humans do not make the decisions to kill and perform evil acts.

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Deuteronomy 32
39: "`See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

[Monta]

[Replying to post 12 by Divine Insight]


"And why couldn't a God (if one existed) simply remove any and all "evil desires" from people? No need to mess with their "Free Will" at all. After all, apparently it's not free will that makes the difference but rather it's what a person desires to do that makes the difference. "

'And why couldn't a God (if one existed)' good point we have to decide for ourselves. If he does not then we should leave him alone.
If he does then we have someone who is all-powerful and we can ask for help to remove 'evil desires' and heal us from any other destructive tendencies.

Once you enter the gates of prison your free-will is taken from you; I suppose it makes them exstactic.

[tam]

[Replying to post 2 by tam]

Even robots end up wanting to be free at some point ; ) (I, robot; Matrix...) Actually, the Matrix is a great movie for many questions, although for this question it's programs rather than robots. The Matrix... where everyone does what is programmed... could not hold some people who wanted to be free (of the lie for humans... or of the programming for the programs who wanted to do something other than what their programming specified).

Apologies tam, but I have to call this as being so much bovine faeces. If you're going to say robots end up wanting freedom, what you should do is give us examples of robots or AIs from the real world that have indicated a desire for freedom.
Not fictional entities from movies or literature.
Would programs want freedom from their own programming like what we see of Agent Smith? Remember, the Matrix movies are fictional, dramatizations designed to sell tickets/DVDs. Of course we humans would want to see a gritty action flick about AIs who take over the world and enslave humanity.
There is an open question as to whether or not real AIs would even do that.

I apologize if the winkie face after the comment was not clear.

That being said, we (mankind) create those fictional movies. And sometimes truth can be grasped or shown through such means. Using props to reflect what we see in reality; to make a point in a less direct way (and so a less threatening way).

But at the least, man cannot conceive of robots (AI or AI programming) not wanting to be free at some point. Because that is not what WE are, and so those fictional programs/robots are a reflection of what is in us.

Peace to you!

[tam]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

Sounds like a safeguard against accidental self-harm. No violation of free will has taken place.


Peace again to you!

[ttruscott]

Good morning, OnceConvinced...

Theists tend to defend freewill as something that is just so important that it would be somehow a terrible thing if we did not have it.

However freewill for many people will result in them rejecting God and ending up in Hell, which many Christians believe will be eternal suffering.

I'm struggling to see how freewill is a good thing if it results in us going to Hell and perhaps suffering for all eternity.

I am reminded of a verse in the bible where Jesus says " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36

It's saying that riches... and continually seeking riches is not a good thing if it results in you losing your soul... ie going to Hell. It's saying that if something is going to cause us to lose our soul then we should avoid it.

Shouldn't the same thing be said about freewill? Should there not also be a scripture that says "For what shall it profit a man to have freewill and lose his own soul?"

So question for debate:

Would it be better to live on earth with Freewill and suffer for all eternity for rejecting Christ or would it be better to give up your freewill so that you can avoid eternal suffering?

Is freewill really such a necessity for a happy life?

Wouldn't life be better if nobody had freewill so nobody could ever do evil? (Like in Heaven)

To start I'd like to clear up my take on your last statement first, to whit, I think GOD and the holy angels in heaven do have a free will and so can choose to sin but have chosen never to have done so and will never do so.

Our free will is indeed the door to suffering though it is not the cause of us entering that door. Those who assume that our free will must have a value above the value of a life with no free will sometimes mistake the cause for the effect...that is, by asserting that free will itself is the value, they miss the true value that a free will may provide.

What is so important about our free will that it makes the chance of someone choosing the path of suffering and eternal death worth it for anyone? Does the illusion of free will, as many claim we experience in earthly life, provide less happiness than the reality of free will in light of the great danger it allows?

If our choices are NOT made by a free will but seem to be so made and we are happy with that, what more could be done for us for our happiness? Does love and the communion / deep bonding of marriage seem just as pleasurable when forced upon us by our natures at birth as the real thing of unforced love and communion chosen by a free will? If it does, then perhaps the illusion of a free will and a loving relationship would suit us just fine. But would it suit the person who knew the difference and who knew that the person who claimed to love them could not do otherwise since they were not able to choose anything else?

I read the Bible as a single story from Adam to Revelations and the new Jerusalem...the creation, the fall, fixing the fall and the wedding of the Lamb with the holy Church as the culmination of the purpose of HIS creating anything in the first place. So while I contend that GOD had no need for the creation, once HE decided to create others then sharing the love the Trinity had became the focal point and a loving communion, a true marriage, with their creation was the purpose. But how could this purpose be fulfilled if the creation had no free will to love back or to want to be in the marriage? That would be like a man being satisfied with a robotic lover programmed to love him. The robots might not know the difference but their Maker surely does. How could this be satisfying to HIS purpose of our creation?

IF we accept that there is a GOD and if we accept HE wants the loving communion of marriage with us, then our free will to accept or to be able to reject HIM becomes a theological necessity, no matter how happy we might be as robots or how much suffering will accrue to those who reject HIS offer of the marriage unity...for GOD to be satisfied HIS Bride must be holy, righteous and loving by their free will, eschewing all HE contends is evil by their choice, not HIS.

[ttruscott]

Yes, the angels had freewill and what happened? They rebelled as a result of that freewill EVEN in Heaven! So I think it's a little like wishful thinking to believe that once we're in Heaven and if we still have freewill, that we won't choose to rebel.

What might be the difference between the angels in heaven before Satan's rebellion and the heaven filled with people of now and the future? You seem to contend that they must be the same but I think there are two main differences that make your worries about a second heavenly rebellion so unlikely as to be impossible.

In heaven pre-fall, no proof of GOD's deity or power was given. We were asked to accept HIS unproven claims by faith, our hope that what HE was telling us was true because that is what seemed to us to give us the most happiness in our future. All the consequences, both natural and legal, of any sin were fully discussed as part of our making up of our minds which way we wanted to go, to accept HIM as our GOD and become HIS elect or to reject HIM as a false god and become HIS eternal enemy.

After the fall, after the Satanic rebellion and everyone had set their relationship with YHWH forever, choosing their future by their free will, GOD finally proved HIM claims by creating the physical universe before our eyes and every voice did sing HIS praise, Job 38:7 and Rom 1:20. Then all those who had chosen to be sinners, either temporary sinners for rebelling against the call for the judgement against the Satanic but under HIS promise salvation or the eternally sinful, all were cast to the earth as their prison, bound in chains of darkness, that is, the enslaving addiction to evil that clouds their minds and corrupts all their choices.

So in the heavens since it was cleansed of evil by it being cast down to earth, all the elect angels KNOW the Deity and power of YHWH! It is not an unproven claim any more for them but a reality. Even the sinful elect here on earth, once they are redeemed and sanctified unto righteousness and die here to appear there KNOW that YHWH is The Living GOD and rebellion to HIS plans is fraught with suffering and death. I contend that this knowledge of the truth about reality ensures that no one will ever choose against their own happiness again nor against the source of all their happiness ever again because NOW THEY KNOW the truth and are perfectly, completely happy with it!

You now choose to not be evil with your family - why think that the most loving people in creation will ever choose to be evil against the ones they love? Especially when they know by experience the inevitable destruction that would cause?