The Failure of the Free Will Argument for Religion

[Divine Insight]

Free will cannot be a valid excuse for Christianity, because if this God can offer people eternal life in a heavenly paradise where they will never suffer the horrors of accidents or natural disasters, then those people would either need to forfeit their free will in heaven, or free will cannot be a valid excuse for why God doesn't protect innocent people here on earth.

And if people need to forfeit free will in heaven, then clearly free will can't be important at all. In fact, if free will must be relinquished in heaven then it can never have been a desirable thing. Therefore the Christian claim that free will is the excuse why the Biblical God doesn't protect us here on earth from horrible accidents, and other forms of suffering cannot be true.

So free will fails miserably as an apology for Christianity.

Question for Debate:

Can anyone argue against the above reasoning?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Free will cannot be a valid excuse for Christianity, because if this God can offer people eternal life in a heavenly paradise where they will never suffer the horrors of accidents or natural disasters, then those people would either need to forfeit their free will in heaven, or free will cannot be a valid excuse for why God doesn't protect innocent people here on earth.

And if people need to forfeit free will in heaven, then clearly free will can't be important at all. In fact, if free will must be relinquished in heaven then it can never have been a desirable thing. Therefore the Christian claim that free will is the excuse why the Biblical God doesn't protect us here on earth from horrible accidents, and other forms of suffering cannot be true.

So free will fails miserably as an apology for Christianity.

Question for Debate:

Can anyone argue against the above reasoning?

Free will fails miserably as an apology for Christianity because nowhere does the Bible actually offer free will.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 1 by Divine Insight]

Sin is a form of slavery or, in the terms you mean, sin is a lack of free will. So losing the ability to sin doesn't limit our freedom.

So really you are posing a contradictory statement. You want to say that heaven has no free will if there is no sin but sin is a lack of free will and so we wouldn't expect it in heaven.

Reduced to: free will must have no free will to be truly free will.

It's absurd.

[Furrowed Brow]

Sin is a form of slavery or, in the terms you mean, sin is a lack of free will.

I'm thinking this definition of free will (or sin) is a bit of a puzzle that offers little illumination. It kind of sounds that if someone does something wrong it is not really their choice. Thus if Moe murders Joe then Moe was forced to do it by his genes, biology or Satan. Calls into question why Moe would ever be deserving of punishment or exclusion from heaven.

Also wonder if heaven requires 100% free will (there being no sin) are we free to leave or is wanting to leave a sin?

[theophile]

[Replying to Divine Insight]

Heaven is heaven precisely because it is conditioned on everyone freely choosing - and continuing to choose - the way / life we are called to.

Pretty sure regression is always possible, if that's your concern. Jesus, who was alone in choosing this path in his story, could have turned his back on it at any point. The fact that he didn't is what makes the crucifixion the redeeming event that it was.

[theophile]

[Replying to post 4 by Furrowed Brow]

Sin is a form of slavery or, in the terms you mean, sin is a lack of free will.

I think there are different ways to look at it. I would argue that sin closes down possibilities and therefore choice / freedom.

Think of it this way: if a child misbehaves, the freedom of the child is limited. Same for someone in the world who sins. The world pulls back from them and resists (just as the earth resisted producing food for Adam and babies resisted being born). The world becomes less cooperative with the sinful.

So in this way, there is a relationship between sin and free will, not that sin annuls it but rather it reduces what we can do through the natural response of others in the world to be less cooperative with us when we sin.

Another way to look at it is in the naturally enslaving effect of sin. It's a much easier path to think only of ourselves and can be tough for us to break out of that mindset. Like how Jesus says how hard it will be for a rich man to enter the Kingdom: our riches enslave us and become hard to let go of.

[Furrowed Brow]

I would argue that sin closes down possibilities and therefore choice / freedom.

Well I guess that if in heaven there are no banks to rob, no accounts to misrepresent, no wealth to defraud, no chattels to desire or someone else's partner to lust after then a lot of problems go away. If we are disembodied entities then sex stops being a problem.

Another way to look at it is in the naturally enslaving effect of sin. It's a much easier path to think only of ourselves and can be tough for us to break out of that mindset.

True, it takes intellectual and emotion effort to think about the well being of people never met. I tend to see selfish actions as a sign of immaturity.

[theophile]

[Replying to Furrowed Brow]

theophile wrote:

I would argue that sin closes down possibilities and therefore choice / freedom.

Well I guess that if in heaven there are no banks to rob, no accounts to misrepresent, no wealth to defraud, no chattels to desire or someone else's partner to lust after then a lot of problems go away. If we are disembodied entities then sex stops being a problem.

No, SIN closes down possibilities, not the reverse. Again, if someone lives a sinful life, i.e., if they think only of themselves (to put it simply), then others in the world will be less willing to cooperate with them. They will instead become resisted, walled in, and less free. (Just as Genesis 2-3 shows.)

Put otherwise, selfish behavior begets selfish behavior in others, and as a result the world becomes less enabling of our actions and our freedom becomes more limited.

Conversely, selfless behavior begets selfless behavior in others, and as a result the world becomes more enabling of our actions and our freedom becomes more unlimited.

That is the logic of the bible. What you said above is the complete reverse, and a mistaking of my point.

True, it takes intellectual and emotion effort to think about the well being of people never met. I tend to see selfish actions as a sign of immaturity.

Exactly. And to understand my point above, you need to think about the natural response of others to selfish versus selfless behavior. And based on that response, who our freedom in this world is either limited or grows.

[ttruscott]

... free will cannot be a valid excuse for why God doesn't protect innocent people here on earth.

Our free will is non-existent on earth because we are enslaved to evil and so suffering the consequences of living in an evil place with an evil heart.

Christian theology insists:
No innocents are born or live on earth.
Only those guilty of sin are born on earth.
No innocent suffers or dies.

Free will fails miserably as an apology for Christianity because nowhere does the Bible actually offer free will.

The Bible may not 'offer' a free will to people (whatever that means) but it does support that our free will is an absolute necessity in GOD's creation.

People are judged to be guilty of sin and are punished for this. How is it possible that this language can describe the fate of a malfunctioning machine (albeit, one made of muscle, blood and bone)?

How is the concept of painful discipline as the method of training a person to righteous moral actions as depicted in Heb 12:5-11, consistent with the concept that their actions and thoughts are the products of another person's mind and will? Is GOD training HIMself to be righteous by the painful discipline of others? It is absurd...

The concept of our free will is an absolute necessity to keep GOD at arm's length from the creation of evil and to make the guilt of the evil ones a true guilt and so liable to righteous judgment. None of the moral attitude of the Bible makes any sense at all if we did not become sinners by our free will against the moral instruction from GOD.

That sinners cannot have a free will until they are reborn free of their addictive slavery of evil does not mitigate the moral attitude that all sinners had to become sinners by their free will decision to rebel against YHWH. Therefore claiming that people on earth do not have a free will is moot because all are sinners, Bible 101.

[ttruscott]

Also wonder if heaven requires 100% free will (there being no sin) are we free to leave or is wanting to leave a sin?

The whole thing about choosing for GOD or against GOD and then cleansing the universe from those who chose against HIM rests on the idea that HE created us to have a loving marriage relationship with HIM called the heavenly state which we wanted and accepted by our free will.

How can it then be said that we have no free will within the marriage state we chose by our free will and then enjoy? OF course we have a free will, uncoerced by GOD in the least, but like the Trinity itself, we have chosen to put righteous love ahead of any other consideration and will not change our minds because we have seen and experienced the consequences of doing so already.

And if all of created reality is experiencing the marriage state, what does leaving it imply or entail?? It is an empty question...like, what if the sky were green or water dry?