R - Can free will exist....

3,715 Views | 49 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by dds08
dds08
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In a world without the presence of sin?

My father and I were watching the Lucy movie yesterday starring Morgan Freeman and Scarlet Johansson.

He made the argument that God knew that with the serpent in the garden of Eden would play a part in sin; that the world would eventually be what it is today. He commented that, you would have thought God would have protected Adam and Eve from the serpent.

But before all those comments, I made the comment that all the things Lucy was doing in the movie, becuase she supposedly had 100% capacity of her brains mental functioning, is bogus because there is no way humans were meant to time travel and read minds, control people, and the such.

All this got me to thinking, is it possible to have a world such as Perelandra or Malacandria in CS Lewis Space Trilogy? Where the inhabitants have free will yet live sinless lives?
Aggrad08
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Free will is a common excuse for sin. But usually christians dont characterize heaven as a place without free will but do consider it as a place without sin.

I would say free will combined with human frailty and imperfection cannot exist without sin. Perhaps perfect beings can pull it off e.g. angles. In which case the question becomes why did God bother with the humanity bit.
Zobel
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St Maximos talks about this a bit in his cosmology, I think it's in Ambiguum 7. When we are in God, in heaven, we can only cease our motion in God.

Found the quote. He writes:
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everything that has received its being ex nihilo is in motion (since all things are necessarily carried along toward some cause), then noting that moves has yet come to rest, because its capacity for appetitive movement has not yet come to repose in what it ultimately desires, for nothing but the appearance of the ultimate object of desire can bring to rest that which is carried along by the power of its own nature.

no created being has yet ceased from the natural power that moves it to its proper end, neither has it found rest from the activity that impels it toward its proper end.

[rational creatures] are moved from their natural beginning in being toward a voluntary end in well-being. For the end of the motion of things that are moved is to rest within eternal well-being itself, just as their beginning was being itself, which is God, who is the giver of being and the bestower of the grace of well-being, for he is the beginning and the end. For from God come both our general power of motion (for he is our beginning), and the particular way that we move toward him, for he is our end.

...I am not implying the destruction of our power of self-determination, but rather affirming our fixed and unchangeable natural disposition, that is, a voluntary surrender of the will, so that from the same source whence we received our being, we should also long to receive being moved, like an image that has ascended to its archetype, corresponding to it completely, in the way that an impression corresponds to its stamp, so that henceforth it has neither the inclination nor the ability to be carried elsewhere.
dds08
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Sorry, but I left this one small tidbit out of the first post:

I don't believe Adam and Eve, having never sinned and being as close to human self - actualized potential, were meant to do all the things Lucy did in that movie.

For one, there was just no way humans were meant to travel time. There is so little we know about time as it is.
schmendeler
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You realize Lucy is science fiction, right? And poorly written at that.
dds08
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schmendeler said:

You realize Lucy is science fiction, right? And poorly written at that.
It makes you wonder though, what would humans have achieved by now if sin was not a part of the equation. What would the world look like if every human was the best human it could be? Human self - actualization unlocked.
schmendeler
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I'd have a pet dinosaur.
gordo97
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I thought Lucy was an entertaining movie
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schmendeler
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gordo97 said:

I thought Lucy was an entertaining movie


But you don't like aliens?
swimmerbabe11
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Luther's Bondage of the Will is incredible on this.
chuckd
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Quote:

Can free will exist in a world without the presence of sin?
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world..."

Adam made a rational choice without the presence of sin.
Texaggie7nine
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What makes this an interesting question is when you recognize that "Sin" is defined by that which is against the will of God, or to simplify, doing that which God does not want us to do.

What if in the afterlife, God wants us to do whatever we want and therefore nothing could be sinful?
7nine
dds08
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Texaggie7nine said:

What makes this an interesting question is when you recognize that "Sin" is defined by that which is against the will of God, or to simplify, doing that which God does not want us to do.

What if in the afterlife, God wants us to do whatever we want and therefore nothing could be sinful?
Notice that God gives you the ability to disobey him, yet disobeying him and doing what is best for yourself are never on the same side of the equation/ good argument for doing/not doing a particular action.

Obeying God and doing what is in your best interest is always on the same side of the equation. What you want isn't always whats best for you. I'm sure you already knew that. I'm playing along with you.

CS Lewis explains it better in his book Perelandra when Satan does his best to persuade the first human female on the planet Perelandra to sin and the protagonist is thinking of a way to persuade her to the light.
Texaggie7nine
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But then you have to accept that sometime sinning here is in our best interest, unless you think God is some mathematical equation that simply cannot ever allow the variable of sin to bring a better result.

For instance, would Paul have been as effective of a apostle had he never sinned before in his life?
Or think of any instance in someone's life where they were overall better off because of a previous sin that had to have happened for a greater good to come about.
7nine
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dds08
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schmendeler said:

I'd have a pet dinosaur.
LOL I just got this joke. Animals and humans lived in harmony together before sin so this was quite a possibility.

It's just hard to imagine having a pet T-Rex.
Texaggie7nine
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God would be pretty inefficient if He had already planned out exactly, every milisecond of your life had you never sinned.
7nine
dds08
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Texaggie7nine said:

God would be pretty inefficient if He had already planned out exactly, every milisecond of your life had you never sinned.
I don't think this is how it works. I would think that God gives you degrees of freedom or boundaries in and of which freedom is allowed to flourish with sin being the area past the boundaries.
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dds08
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True. Touche!
ramblin_ag02
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Trying to parse the original question, "can free will exist without sin?" Why not? In my mind there is only one philosophical (metaphysical?) construct where this would be true.

Only if there were only one God-sanctioned course of action in any situation would you have this tension between free will and sin. In such a circumstance, making any choice but the perfect God-sanctioned one would be sin, and sin would be necessary for free will.

I don't think that applies in our world. I don't think there is only one good action among a plethora of sinful ones. I think in some cases people can choose between many different good actions. Donating money to charity is an example. There isn't just one good charity. You could donate to your church, a mission group, a homeless shelter, or directly to someone in need. None of these is sinful, and you have the free will to pick one. So free will is clearly present without the need for sin.
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dds08
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I agree with this. I tell people, with freedom and free will, there are many alternatives to choose from when it comes to decision making. A certain set of decisions are sinful, while a certain set may be righteous.

Some people respond to this by saying, I disagree. Decision making is black and white; either right or wrong. For the sake of not getting caught up in a argument I just say ok, which is my way of agreeing to disagree.

Life is more than black and white. Life is the full spectrum of color. Law may be black and white in books written down on paper, but the spirit of law is in color, I suspect.
TexAgs91
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JJMt said:

And, without free will, could you have love?
We are deterministic, so we do have love without free will
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TexAgs91
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JJMt said:

TexAgs91 said:

JJMt said:

And, without free will, could you have love?
We are deterministic, so we do have love without free will
I don't understand; can you explain? How can one love if one has no choice about it?
http://people.howstuffworks.com/love6.htm

You know the racing heart, flushed skin and sweaty palms? That's dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine. Dopamine is the pleasure chemical and norepinephine is similar to adrenaline.
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According to Helen Fisher, anthropologist and well-known love researcher from Rutgers University, together these two chemicals produce elation, intense energy, sleeplessness, craving, loss of appetite and focused attention. She also says, "The human body releases the cocktail of love rapture only when certain conditions are met and ... men more readily produce it than women, because of their more visual nature."

How do we know?
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Researchers are using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to watch people's brains when they look at a photograph of their object of affection. According to Helen Fisher, a well-known love researcher and an anthropologist at Rutgers University, what they see in those scans during that "crazed, can't-think-of-anything-but stage of romance" -- the attraction stage -- is the biological drive to focus on one person. The scans showed increased blood flow in areas of the brain with high concentrations of receptors for dopamine -- associated with states of euphoria, craving and addiction. High levels of dopamine are also associated with norepinephrine, which heightens attention, short-term memory, hyperactivity, sleeplessness and goal-oriented behavior. In other words, couples in this stage of love focus intently on the relationship and often on little else.

Here's a good article on the six stages of love.

That we know how it works doesn't make it bad. It's part of being human. But that's how it works.
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TexAgs91
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JJMt said:

I'm not talking about that kind of love. I'm talking about intentional, self-sacrificing love. The love that a soldier has for his comrades, the love that a person has for their country, a love that old couples have for each other. In no way can such love be described as a mere chemical reaction, particularly when such love frequently works to the detriment of the person who has committed to it. Such love is an act of the will, not a mere emotion.

With no free will, such love would be impossible.

And, even with young, erotic love, are the chemicals the cause or simply an effect, or perhaps even both?
You're talking about something different that Stage 6 of the 2nd article? Maybe getting into altruism?

According to this, our brains have an ability to model ourselves within others. Our brains seem to be hardwired to feel the pain of others we are familiar with as we would feel pain ourselves. This probably evolved as a way of protecting more than just ourselves. If we can protect multiple people rather than just ourselves, our species ensures the survival of more offspring.

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To find this out, researchers had to get a bit medieval. They had participants undergo fMRI brain scans while threatening to give them electrical shocks, or to give shocks to a stranger or a friend. Results showed that regions of the brain responsible for threat response the anterior insula, putamen and supramarginal gyrus became active under threat of shock to the self; that much was expected. When researchers threatened to shock a stranger, those same brain regions showed virtually no activity. But when they threatened to shock a friend, the brain regions showed activity nearly identical to that displayed when the participant was threatened.

This isn't a response we choose to have. It's automatic.

TexAgs91
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p.s. the degree to which your brain models the feelings of others probably explains a lot of things. Like liberals for example who seem to empathize with strangers to the point of being self destructive. Shock therapy or chemical castration might be effective for them.


DirtDiver
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Quote:

Where the inhabitants have free will yet live sinless lives?


There's a theological term called, "glorification" which is what I think this is a discription of. Eternal life in which our perishible nature is changed to imperishable and in which the ability to sin is not longer a part of our nature. Right now our human nature is embedded with sin and our flesh loves it.
BigLeroy
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In the presence of a sinful world, as believers, we don't have to sin (free will). We all tend to, of course (free will), but the truth is we don't have to (free will) ... we have been freed of being a slave to sin via the work of the cross. Instead, now (post salvation), we are no longer free in terms of righteousness. Meaning the righteousness that now abides on the inside will speak and call out to us. Before salvation, it was not there to speak to us. We have free will to sin, but now we have an ability and a strength on the inside ("in Christ) that at worst is an aid to our free will choices against sin.

Romans 6 (NKJV)

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Zobel
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I think you're conflating slavery to sin as an action and slavery to sin as death a bit.

And men have consciences without being Christians.

The Holy Spirit and salvation can't be reduced to being our conscience or just a way to help us resist sin.
BigLeroy
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Quote:

I think you're conflating slavery to sin as an action and slavery to sin as death a bit.

And men have consciences without being Christians.

The Holy Spirit and salvation can't be reduced to being our conscience or just a way to help us resist sin.

Not sure what you mean by your first statement. When we were unbelievers, slavery to sin was just a truth.

True, unbelievers have a conscience, but that conscience is not born out of, or called out by, or shaped by their un-regenerated spirit ... rather, its by the mind, will, emotions and intellect (soul) which are shaped by laws and public mores (among other things) with the threat of a consequence to be enforced by man, or God (as in the Children of Israel under the law in the OT).

Regarding the reduction of the Holy Spirit and salvation ... I am not suggesting the HS or salvation is reduced in any way ... just that this is an attribute and benefit of salvation ... and a wonderful one a that.
Zobel
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I mean your statement combined the slavery to sin as an existential state with the slavery to sin as individual actions. They're related, but not the same thing.

I think St Paul's passage with regard to slaves to sin or God are more of the existential nature, with our actions as consequences.

And I don't agree that human conscience is not formed by God. All men are created in His image. If we are purely products of our environment as you suggest then no one needs an excuse for sin, but the Bible contradicts this. I'm not sure what you mean when you say unregenerated spirit when you include mind, will, emotions, and intellect/soul as things that are not the spirit. I don't think we gain knowledge of Good and Evil when we become Christians. I think our understanding is refined in His terms, but no one has an excuse for sin or ignorance (cf Romans 1 etc).
BigLeroy
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Quote:

I mean your statement combined the slavery to sin as an existential state with the slavery to sin as individual actions. They're related, but not the same thing.

I think St Paul's passage with regard to slaves to sin or God are more of the existential nature, with our actions as consequences.

I agree with your last statement. Bottom line is that slavery to a sin nature will have as its end the commission of sins in our lives. Don't know of a biblical example where it didn't.

Quote:

And I don't agree that human conscience is not formed by God. All men are created in His image. If we are purely products of our environment as you suggest then no one needs an excuse for sin, but the Bible contradicts this.

First, I never suggested we are purely products of our environment. Your belief that our conscience is purely formed by God is not an accurate representation of scripture (unless you are strictly referring to the biological creation of it in which case I would agree). If that were true, we would not be exhorted and taught to renew our minds with the Word and to think on certain things and not others. Clearly there is more than one avenue by which our conscience can be formed and impacted. Some avenues God is for and others He exhorts us not to be conformed to.

Romans 12:2 - And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Philippians 4:8-9
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthymeditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.

Quote:

I'm not sure what you mean when you say unregenerated spirit when you include mind, will, emotions, and intellect/soul as things that are not the spirit.

Soul and spirit are not the same.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Romans 8
16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirsheirs of God and joint heirs with Christ

The un-regenerated spirit is the condition of our human spirit prior to the new birth.

Ephesians 2:1-5 - And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus


Quote:

I don't think we gain knowledge of Good and Evil when we become Christians. I think our understanding is refined in His terms, but no one has an excuse for sin or ignorance (cf Romans 1 etc).

I never indicated that the fact that we had a sinful nature was an excuse on our part for sin. Whose fault was the sinful nature's reality in the first place? Ours.

When we become Christians, our spirit begins to bear witness with the Holy Spirit in a way it never did before. So we may not gain detailed informational knowledge per se, but we definitely gain a witness from the Holy Spirit who leads and guides and that leadership and guidance certainly concerns good and evil among other things.

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