Do we really have free will?

ianoleary · #1 May 16, '12, 8:11 pm

I'm an 18 year old born and raised Catholic, and lately life has been a mess. Over the past couple of years I've kind of gone though a spiritual rebirth and have been asking a bunch of questions about life. Catholicism seems to have a lot of evidence to support it, but I'm still seeing conflicting evidence. Do we really have free will or am I mistaken about the definition of it? The issue of free will lately has really been bugging me and certainly hasn't helped my OCD/anxiety/depersonalization that's been going on. Can someone enlighten me?

Veronica97 · #2 May 16, '12, 8:44 pm

What do you mean by free will? Do you wonder if we can choose to go against God? Or do you wonder if we can choose to leave the Catholic faith for another church? Please explain.

Theresa Frances · #3 May 16, '12, 9:10 pm

We have an intellect to distinguish right from wrong, and a free will to choose whether to act in a right or wrong manner.

Eric Hyom · #4 May 16, '12, 9:17 pm

Hello ianoleary;

I believe that God created us to live by the greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The freedom to love, also gives us the freedom to do evil.

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by these commandments because they are the greatest response to every encounter in his life. But how could Jesus love the people who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross? We know that he prayed on the cross ‘forgive them Father’

It seems that Jesus forgave in order that he should still live by the greatest commandments, to love all his neighbours as he loves himself. Can the forgiveness of sins hang and depend on the greatest commandments, and the reason we have the ability to choose our path in life?

Blessings,

Eric

Eric Hyom · #5 May 16, '12, 9:20 pm

Hello ianoleary;

believe that God created us to live by the greatest commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The freedom to love, also gives us the freedom to do evil.

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by these commandments because they are the greatest response to every encounter in his life. But how could Jesus love the people who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross? We know that he prayed on the cross ‘forgive them Father’

It seems that Jesus forgave in order that he should still live by the greatest commandments, to love all his neighbours as he loves himself. Can the forgiveness of sins hang and depend on the greatest commandments, and the reason we have the ability to choose our path in life?

Blessings,

Eric

ASimon · #6 May 16, '12, 10:08 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianoleary

I'm an 18 year old born and raised Catholic, and lately life has been a mess. Over the past couple of years I've kind of gone though a spiritual rebirth and have been asking a bunch of questions about life. Catholicism seems to have a lot of evidence to support it, but I'm still seeing conflicting evidence. Do we really have free will or am I mistaken about the definition of it? The issue of free will lately has really been bugging me and certainly hasn't helped my OCD/anxiety/depersonalization that's been going on. Can someone enlighten me?

"Free will" can neither be supported philosophically, nor neuro-scientifically, so no, we don't have it.

Qoeleth · #7 May 16, '12, 10:35 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASimon

"Free will" can neither be supported philosophically, nor neuro-scientifically, so no, we don't have it.

But we seem to have free will- we experience the process of making decisions. This experience, the apparent making of decisions, is what free will actually is.

ASimon · #8 May 17, '12, 12:48 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

But we seem to have free will- we experience the process of making decisions. This experience, the apparent making of decisions, is what free will actually is.

It isn't, though. Free will is the authorship of intention to act, not simply the acting itself. Obviously, decisions are made. We appear to choose to do things, but we don't actually author the intention to choose whatever we seem to choose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rainaldo

After you define "free" and "will", consider this: If we don't have free will, then we would all be absolutely certain that we don't - and we would be unable to think that we do have free will. See how that works?

If you had been unknowingly, but explicitly controlled by some independent, intelligent force for every moment of your life, why would this negate the possibility that you could think you had free will? If this intelligent force could control your actions, he would, in turn, control your mind, so why couldn't he make you think you had free will?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bilop

Nonsense. At this particular moment, you and I are both free to embark on any physically possible action we choose.

I could jump up and down and cluck like a chicken. I could run down the street naked.

Now, I don't want to do those things. I choose not to. But their is no way in which I am constrained from doing them.

You can't say my preferences constrain me, b/c if somebody offered me a suitcase full of $100 bills for running down the street naked, you can be damn sure I'd change my mind.

Every "free" choice you appear to make stands at the head of a string of prior causes that delve deep into your own internal causality. You can never fully account for all these prior causes. And if you follow the regress far enough, you eventually hit on a cause that you had no hand in choosing. You may run down the street naked because you want the suitcase full of money. But if I asked you why wanted the suitcase full of money, the only truly coherent reply is that because money has a value (a fact that you had no hand in choosing). But if you wanted to take it further, can you account for why you value something that our society also values?

Rainaldo · #9 May 17, '12, 2:22 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASimon

If you had been unknowingly, but explicitly controlled by some independent, intelligent force for every moment of your life, why would this negate the possibility that you could think you had free will? If this intelligent force could control your actions, he would, in turn, control your mind, so why couldn't he make you think you had free will?

If you didn't have free will, you wouldn't know it anyway.

ASimon · #10 May 17, '12, 2:30 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rainaldo

If you didn't have free will, you wouldn't know it anyway.

Again, why not? If an independent intelligence were controlling your thoughts and actions, why couldn't they let you know whatever they wanted you to know? It works in both directions. This intelligence could lead you on believing that you were the one in control, or they could forgo that bit and control everything else.

ianoleary · #11 May 17, '12, 8:22 pm

I'm still not seeing exactly how we have it. I want to, though. And that brings up another point: we can do what we want, but can we choose what we want? It sure doesn't feel like it. Any thoughts?

davidv · #12 May 17, '12, 8:30 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianoleary

I'm still not seeing exactly how we have it. I want to, though. And that brings up another point: we can do what we want, but can we choose what we want? It sure doesn't feel like it. Any thoughts?

How does being prevented from getting what you want, prevent you from choosing to want it?
Why does free will = freedom? In Catholic teaching they do not.
Free will is the ability to choose right over wrong, or wrong over right.

Reivax · #13 May 17, '12, 8:44 pm

It is an excruciatingly painful question, but a good one.

In a discussion like this terms must be defined strictly before any progress or argument can be made, otherwise people will simply misunderstand each others arguments.

On a larger scale, events certainly follow causes and are therefore deterministic. However, on a quantum level things get tricky, because as far as we know some particles have completely random personalities and therefore can't be determined. But that is not to say that one day we won't be able to find a new mechanism to predict their 'patterns'. But i'm sitting on the fence with this one.

**tonyrey** · #14 May 25, '12, 2:49 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reivax

It is an excruciatingly painful question, but a good one.

In a discussion like this terms must be defined strictly before any progress or argument can be made, otherwise people will simply misunderstand each others arguments.

On a larger scale, events certainly follow causes and are therefore deterministic. However, on a quantum level things get tricky, because as far as we know some particles have completely random personalities and therefore can't be determined. But that is not to say that one day we won't be able to find a new mechanism to predict their 'patterns'. But i'm sitting on the fence with this one.

Randomness confers confusion not freedom.

ianoleary · #15 May 26, '12, 3:40 pm

What scares me (and I've noticed that this happens a lot) is that I seem to do so much without even consciously thinking about it.