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Free Will and Determinism - Coggle Diagram
Free Will and Determinism
The Fall
They disobeyed God- they must have free will in order to do this.
God held them morally responsible for their actions and he punishes them both.
Adam and Eve had the freedom to use all the resources that God provided in the Garden of Eden, but God told them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
The Problem of Evil
He made us with ability to freely choose to follow him. He provides rules and principles for humans to follow but he gives us the free choice of whether we obey or not.
Albert Camus- 'Either we are not free and God, the all powerful, is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible.'
Christian Theologians argue that evil and suffering is a result of our own free will. God has not caused the evil and suffering- we have by disobeying God. E.g. Adam and Eve made a decision to freely disobey God. Their decision to disobey caused suffering.
Biblical Support for Free Will
the RC- Aquinas 'I answer that man has free will...'
The Catholic Church defines free will as 'the power to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so the perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility'
Paul- 'You my brother and sisters, were called to be free...'
They hold the view that each individual is responsible for their own actions. They do take into account things that limit or diminish our responsibility like ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments and other psychological or social factors.
The protestant Tradition and Free will
Some protestant reject the idea of free will and believe in predestination. Was formulated by theologians Agustine and John Calvin
Predestination: the belief that God has a specific path marked out for each individual. In other words, God has already decided who will be saved and who will not.
St Agustine of Hippo
He argued that this means that no human being is now capable of performing a good action without the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
Augustine believed that God alone determines who will receive the grace that assures salvation.
Believed that humans were initially given free will but had been corrupted by the fall.
He rejected the idea that some were predestined for salvation and others were predestined for damnation. Just because God has foreknowledge does not mean that humans can make decisions freely.
He understood that the work of Christ was God's choice to save elected sinners, but God also chose to allow others to remain in their sins, unsaved.
John Calvin
Calvin deduced that God calls on a small number of people to eternal reward in heaven and damns the majority to hell. This is called 'Double Predestination'.
The point was to remind us that God is free and gracious. There is nothing that we can do to earn God'd favour. Rather, our salvation comes from God alone. We are able to choose God because God first chose us.
Argued that God is omnipotent and omniscient he has already decided who will go to heaven and who will be punished in Hell.
Biblical Support for Predestination
'Before i formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born i set you apart.'
'And so those whom God set apart he called and those he called he put right with himself and he shared his glory with them.'
Objections
Those who are given the gift of salvation are called the ELECT. Those who are not given the gift of salvation are called REPROBATE.
Calvin thought that the HS would be present in the elect and allow them to do good but wouldn't be present in the reprobate and they would be in a sinful state.
Some Christians argue that Calvin's view distorts the message of the cross- Jesus died to save sinners.
Jean Paul Sartre
believe in personal autonomy and that we exist to enrich our lives and maximize the benefits life brings for ourselves.
Sartre notes that humans are different to all other physical things. he says 'We have no essence, we have nothing at our course, we are bound to nothing, fixed by nothing, determined by nothing.'
Developed a philosophy known as Existentialism
in contrast to a designed object such as a penknife- the blueprint and purpose of which pre-exist the actual physical thing- human beings have no pre-established purpose or nature.
Sartre was an ardent atheist and so believed that there could be no Divine Creator in whose mind our essential properties had been conceived before we were formed.
He argued that we are free to direct our lives we must take full responsibility for our actions. He calls this Anguish = we are free but we are condemned to be held morally responsible for our actions.
He believed that humans who delude themselves into thinking they do not have free will are guilty of self-deception
Immanuel Kent
' In morals... freedom of the principle of action from all influences.'
Freedom is an absolute necessity in morality. If we are not free to make moral choices, then good and bad mean nothing.
Kant believed that people are free to fulfill their moral duty to live according to the Categorical Imperative
Free will is what sets humans apart from other animals. E.g animals cannot resist the urge to keep living and reproducing humans can chose not to do both.