Free will..what are your thoughts?

In the thread on Sin this topic came up. I know in churches I have gone to this is always a interesting subject.

Free will, is it a blessing? a curse? is it misused? What are your thoughts?

Personally, I think it's a blessing and a curse, because there are times in my life, I really don't want to be the one making the decision.

Hello!

I think that the concept of free will, first and foremost, is mind-blowing. Especially if you view it from a Christian's point of view. We are told that we have free will so that we may make decisions between right and wrong, who we worship, and ultimately, where we are going to end up for eternity. On the other hand, we know God to be in the past, present and future. We know that He knows the future which make free will a strange concept. Are we really free if God knows what we are going to do? Doesn't that mean He already mapped out the plans about what we're going to do anyway? It's written in the Bible that His ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts. Sometimes I wonder if God chooses to know the future of a choice. He has the ability to see into the future and know what we are going to do, but does He do it? Of course, who am I, a human, to even try to understand the way that God operates. If He wasn't an enigma, He wouldn't be God. If we could totally understand Him, there would be no reason to fear or question Him. If He was like us, there would be no reason to worship Him, pray to Him, trust Him. So, when it comes to free will for me, I think it's a "cold case". Something that has never been solved and may never be solved until we meet eternity ourselves. I think that free will poses infinite possibilities. But we know for certain that we humans live our lives daily based on choices. We choose what we eat. We choose how we dress. We choose to be kind to people, or rude to them. These are little choices next to the choice of do we love God or do we turn away from Him. Once again, how do we know it's free will....doesn't He already know who is going to choose Him and who isn't? The ball is in His court on that on....but I know that I trust Him, even if I don't understand His ways at times. Maybe free will concerning the earthly is different than the unearthly. Flesh versus spirit is also a complicated matter. But I know that I will know some day. And for now, I have chosen to follow Christ and my will is that His will be done in my life.
Blessings,
Yellow

I like this one! I think that Free will is absolutely AWESOME. It is a blessing. Without free will where would we be? We would be mindless little robots without the ability to choose anything of consequence. For a Christian it means (I am assuming, but we all know what that means ) that they have excercised their FREE WILL to accept the gift of salvation by being baptised. I know that in other faiths there is also an act of accepting that faith's blessings as well. Without Free Will this would not be possible. To me that means that we would be on the order of alot of the animals on the planet. For example a dog. They can partake of the bounty of nature but they can't choose to give thanks for it and do not have the benefit of religion.

Yes there are down sides to free will. Like choosing to do the wrong thing. But that is part of the whole balancing the equation thing.

You will find I like to throw out a topic and let it get started before I comment.

I personally think it is both a blessing and a curse. For me it is a blessing because yes I have chosen to follow Christ. No matter what else I have chosen in my life this is one choice that will rule above the others. It shapes who I am.

Now I see it as a curse as well. I am not a novice in my walk, and I believe that I need to treat others with the same love and understanding that I have learned from my father God. Now that makes life interesting. Like with my children, I can tellthem why I know something is wrong, and now that they are adults, I have to let them go their own way. So I see them (and have before they reached that age) make big mistakes and can only wait until they come back to me and wish to talk about it. I have also dealt with some of my friends with this. I try to be honest and let them know why I know the path they are on is wrong, and I am here to talk to. I try not to make choices for my friends or my kids now. It is not always easy and I do alot of praying about it. God certainly has patience with all of us kids!

Okay let me give the best example I can think of here. I had a person that saw me as her sister. She was injured at work and got a prescription for oxycodine. With in a few months she had started to break her own toes, fingers and have teeth pulled to get he drugs. Before it got that bad her mother wholived with her got a couple of us together to help her. Now I was raised in a house where I went to alanon as a teenager, and I still keep to the 12 steps in my life. So I knew where it could be headed. She fough the whole time. In less then a year she had lost her job, her husbdna, all of her friends and was in jail for taking money and drugs from a NAA meeting. So there yes free will is a gift but it can end up a curse. We did try to get her help. However she had to want it.

It is hard to watch a person you care for make choices you know and have warned them will cause them harm. I think that is one of the worst things I have to endure!

From a Christian perspective, I don't see how free will is possible.

I don't believe that it makes any logical sense for God to "let us choose Him", if he is Omnipotent and Omniscient. Wouldn't that mean that he already knows? To allow us free will (in my mind) would be God admitting that he doesn't know what we are going to do and how we will do it.

It's one of those contradictions that doesn't make any sense to me.

I can see where it might be seen as a paradox. How can we have free will if God is omnipotent? That is a good point. I almost think that whether or not God is omnipotent really matters in this area. This is very hard for me to put in to words. If I meander around a bit I apologize. I think the important thing is that we do choose. Not so much what the choice is. We will say for the purpose of argument sake that God is omnipotent. He knows what we will do. That works for Him. But it has more meaning for us who aren't omnipotent to make the choice. It gives value. Possibly strengthening our resolve in what we choose.

Does that make sense? Hope so.

I think I will leave that there for now while I try to figure out the rest of what I was trying to say.

It does make sense up to a point.

While we are not God, nor could we know what God truly is until our passing, our *sense* of free will is important. I for one do not want to be God's meat puppet.

That all being said, if we go by Scripture, there is no possible way that we can *actually* have free will if everything about us was known before we even hit this earth.

Perhaps God wants us to think we have free will in order for our own personal, internal growth....but Scripturally speaking...free will does not (could not) exist.

Those of us going to Hell are already going to hell, and those of us going to heaven will already get there...no matter what choices we make in the present...since God already knows what we're going to do in the future.

Sort of disconcerting, really. Why even try?

In my belief system there is free will.

While I believe that the Gods are closer to a single, unknowable in its perfection, Divine Source...and they are all knowing....they do not direct the events of my life, as they have better things to do than really care all that much about a mortal such as myself.

Granted, they do intercede and are interested, but I am not a meat puppet.

What I choose or choose not to do either brings me into the light of the Gods, or it turns me away from them, and my life goes to the toilet.

That is true free will, in my opinion.

Now, perhaps this is how Christianity views free will...but that would go against Scripture...so I'm not sure.

First of all I respect your beliefs. I can see that you are a person of deep conviction.

My belief is that God, while omnipotent, does not necessarily concern Himself with whether or not I wear pink socks or green ones. He may KNOW what choice I will make but I don't feel that HE directs it.

Like you, Twinkle, I feel that the choices that I make will take me closer or keep me from God. It is the journey that means something to me. How I build my relationship with the "powers that be".

I am convinced that free will is alive and well in this exsistence of ours. Otherwise I am sure that people would be trying to combat the forces of evil. We choose to do this. To me that is Free will.

But thank you for giving me food for thought.

You've given me some, as well.

Hello, Friends!

I just read all of the posts on this thread and I loved them! Twinkle, thanks for the challenging thoughts on free will. You made some very valid and thought-provoking statements which are great in exercising everyone's faith and conviction. Lady Zandraa, I can see the direction in which your headed and that helps me to make a clearer argument for how I believe....I also found something that my MOST DEAR C.S. Lewis wrote a long time ago concerning a thought on free will: "God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having”--Lewis.

With a little more thought, something occurred to me which should have before, but sometimes I write or speak without thinking a matter over entirely. Perhaps free will is still free will. There is the whole confusing thought about God already knows so how can it be? Lady Zandraa, you were right in saying that God is Omnipotent, He DOES know. But just because God can know the future doesn't mean that He will alter it. He won't change a decision that we make, but He can fix the decision later on after we've made it. Let's say I decide that I want to steal something. So I do. God doesn't alter or control that thought--I do. Later on, when remorse sets in, I can turn to God, repent, and He will show me the steps in fixing this problem, like returning the item or confessing to someone to make it right. That's just a little example of course, but you get what I mean. So, in essence, we HAVE free will, but we'll receive intervention when we seek it.
Does that make sense? I hope so. Sometimes, I think this forum would be easier if we all have video conferences.

Anyway, thanks for the great insight from everyone. I enjoyed reading the posts and look forward to reading more on this and other subjects.
Blessings,
Yellow

I am one who thinks free will is a good thing. I would not want to be a mindless woman who has no say so in her life.

God created us this way for the number one purpose of choosing to want a relationship with Him. The Angels must serve Him, they do His bidding.

But I also realize that our free will can get us into ALOT of trouble....I have gotten in more than my fair share of it. Thank God for His Grace and His Mercy or I would be toast!

I have seen people who just cannot seem to get it together, one bad choice after another and I just wanna sit em down and tell em, commone! Ever been there?

I am glad that I have my free will....For me it is a blessing...ONE of many!

This has turned out to be a very good thread. Thanks everyone!

I think this touches on some interesting points. I have been inolvoed with soem very open minded churches. One study group we touched on the idea of love spells or praying for God to make someone love you. Either way you look at the idea it is the same thought, to take someone's free will choice of freely loving. Love isn't really love until it is freely given to me. Take a puppy, nothing is quite as amazing as the devotion of a new puppy to somone that cares for it. I think that very point of free will to lve somone is part of the reason behind it. God could have made us love him, easy, but to allow us the choice, that is a totally different thing.

Now I still seeit as both a blessing and a curse. I have a very good example of this happeningin my life right now. Our very good friends wife's father went in for some tests at he beginning of the month. He was having trouble eating and keepign the food down. Sounded like a couple of simple tests. He came out of the hospital 4 days latter with stage four cancer. they thoguth lung cancer, ends up he was aplumber and it is mesthohemoma (not sure of the spelling, sorry) He has it all through his abdomin. One tumor is the size of a football and has gotten all through his intestines. They now have been to about 9 doctors.

I have been workig with hands on healing, Reiki, whatever you wish to call it, to me it is basically the same for many years. I tried to get them to force him to the doctor before because I just knew something wasn't right, but he has been stand offish since I met him. He tends to only let his grand daughter and his 2 daughters close to him. I accept that, again his free will. So in July we were over there every weekend, enjoying their company and just enjoying the friendship, playing horseshoes, swimming in their pool, playing card games, talking for hours, you name it we did it changin off who cooked dinner, jsut normal things. So for us to see this man suddenly so ill was amazing. As I write this he is in a New York city hospital dying. He took he news of the stage 4 and decieded it is time to go. He should have had weeks or even months, but in less then 3 weeks from hearing the news he is now without an IV, in a comma and one kidney has totally failed, the other is very close. No one has a guess even if he will regain consiousness. Wow, such a shock. So very fast.

I personally have talked to his daughter about healign many times. She gets really bad stress headaches, which through some prayer and hands on healing I have been able to help her with. I have been dreading the call I expected from her of "come heal my dad". I can't, I know this. How would I explain it to her? See for me healing is first off not of me, it comes from God. Secondly it is her dad's free will choice to go. I'm not saying it is or isn't his time. I am saying he has said he is ready to go, he gave up and gave in. That I think is his right, his free will choice. He believes he is set with God and ready to go home. I have no right to try to change that. As much as I care for her as a friend, I can not get past that.

That to me is another reason I can see it as a blessing (he is rerady to go, and doesn't have to suffer through operations, kemo, or anything) and a curse (his family isn't ready to let him go and in so much pain)

Oh LadyS that is so horrible!!

I cannot imagine how bad you feel,,how nice of you to do reiki with this man and his family,,perhaps the poor mans' pain is too unbearable to think straight and he simply doesn't want to live with all of it..

Reiki is such a simple thing as is all energy work I wish more people would you know get that.I am going to take a course in it when I am ready...please know that man his family as well as you are in my prayers..if you need to chat pm me or email me.
God Bless you for your kindness!
((((((((((((((((LadyS))))))))))))))))))))))