Does Free Will Truly Exist? > Likes and Comments

Yes, free will exists. If we didn’t have free will we would all just believe the same thing. There would be no choice in the matter. God doesn’t force us to love him or even like him, yet he still loves us. But he wants us to choose to love him. Not be forced to love him.

what if our every action is being controlled and we have been made to feel like we have free will, when in reality everything is scripted 🤓

on a more serious note lol: imo, we have free will. there is no destiny or fate, things are both preventable and achievable to certain degrees. you can control yourself, which can impact the world around you.

so i’ve a lot of hypocritical and conflicting points between christians, because on one hand you say god gives you free will, on the other hand you say god has a set path for you, which one is it? you can’t have both with each other, if there is a set path you ultimately don’t have free will, because it’s already decided. and if you have free will and choose everything yourself, there is no set path because you have the control and not god, so please explain that to me

ash ³ ᵈᵘ ᵈᵘ ᵈᵘ wrote: "so i’ve a lot of hypocritical and conflicting points between christians, because on one hand you say god gives you free will, on the other hand you say god has a set path for you, which one is it? ..."

yeah can someone explain this

This might make no sense 😭

If an all knowing God, who knows exactly what your future holds, exists then I don’t think free will can exist. Say you come to some crossroads while driving a car - you can either go left or right or straight onwards. If God knows your future, he knows you will turn right. Although there is the illusion of choice - nothing physical is stopping you from turning left - your future is already decided and you cannot turn left, even if you want to.
If God knows your future, past and present, if it’s ’laid out before him like a movie strip’ then your future is already decided, just like your past. You cannot change it.

Hazel (my girlfriend's version) wrote: "This might make no sense 😭

If an all knowing God, who knows exactly what your future holds, exists then I don’t think free will can exist. Say you come to some crossroads while driving a car - yo..."

well said!

Hazel (my girlfriend's version) wrote: "This might make no sense 😭

If an all knowing God, who knows exactly what your future holds, exists then I don’t think free will can exist. Say you come to some crossroads while driving a car - yo..."

exactly clock it 🤏🎀

You can't choose your nature. You can't choose the family you're born into, the society that shapes you, or the genes that drive you. But within that cage, there's room to move. You can choose to question. You can choose to examine your own habits. You can choose to be honest when lying would be easier. That's not absolute freedom — but it's enough to hold people responsible.

Alder [In the Woods] wrote: "This might make no sense 😭

If an all knowing God, who knows exactly what your future holds, exists then I don’t think free will can exist. Say you come to some crossroads while driving a car - yo..."

It is interesting to consider the idea of omniscience that we attribute to God. We often imagine it as a form of knowledge bound to a linear conception of time. But if we imagine an eternal being who has always existed, can we really assume that time has the same linear meaning for Him that it has for us? Probably not.

God's omniscience may extend to all possible realities determined by all the possible choices of every sentient being. Such a conception of omniscience does not conflict with free will unless we assume that we are merely mechanisms created to perform perfectly determined actions within a single possible reality.

In that case, however, the existence of God would not be necessary. It would be sufficient to assume that we live in a world entirely predetermined by chains of cause and effect.

God, therefore, is not an obstacle to free will, nor is His omniscience, provided we make the effort to imagine a form of knowledge that is not constrained by temporal succession in the way human knowledge is.

God may even be the only possible explanation for our freedom of choice and for a reality that increasingly appears, even in light of our physical understanding of the universe, to resemble a spectrum of possibilities rather than a perfectly programmed mechanism.

If we conceive of reality as a spectrum of possibilities, then free will becomes an essential and constitutive element of the world: the means through which we determine which of those possible realities we will experience.

Good thoughts here. God is all and all is God. "It" emanates, "It" infuses, "It" permeates. "It" is. We make "It" what it is becoming, and "It" has made us what we are. Life and our will were given freely to us and we give back freely. There is no other fate or destiny involved; we come into this world through creation and we leave through entropy. What happens in between is sometimes chance, sometimes choice, and sometimes given the chances or the choices; it becomes fate. "It" welcomes us back when we are done doing our part. Good work everyone!

God and America (https://IBelieveUS.com) has this note at the end of Chapter 1 defending the Declaration of Independence statement that all men are created equal.

Note: Being created equal does not mean all are equal in outcomes. It does mean each human being is given gifts from God they are responsible to develop and make useful to society in the pursuit of their own happiness. On the theological side, a religious would say that there is a divine plan (the Eternal Law) and each soul has its part to play in the execution of that plan. The happy person is one who recognizes their part (talents) and willfully participates in their destiny.

This would suggest that there is Free Will and your happiness depends on how you develop and use your talents. It's like swimming across a river with a current. You may get to the other side swimming against the current but you are much better off cooperating with the current--arriving at destiny not desire.

BookSailor wrote: "God and America (https://IBelieveUS.com) has this note at the end of Chapter 1 defending the Declaration of Independence statement that all men are created equal.

Note: Being created equal does no..."

Well said. I have heard a similar sentiment expressed this way: Each of us has our "path" (small p) through life as we unfold, while at the same time the universe has it's "Path" (Capital P) as it unfolds. When our path is in harmony with the universe's Path; that is a marriage made in heaven.