Question about free will

[LeaveIt2Me]

I have been reading the Bible and I was a little confused about something. When Moses was trying to leave Egypt there were verses talking about hardening Pharaoh’s heart and again in the New Testament there were similar verses about hardening their hearts so that they would hear but not understand. How does this coincide with free will? Does hardening their hearts mean that they didn’t have a chance to repent? Maybe I am understanding it wrong but it seems like everything is predestined.

[Little Sherri]

I'm no biblical scholar, but it seems to me that the Bible goes back and forth over people being "predestined" or "directed" to do certain things or be a certain way, and then other people wear their choices and their actions. So it's very subject to interpretation. It's explicitly stated that man has been given free will, but then there are examples of people being steered, and, indeed, an explanation for a lot of the "plot points" is that "it had to happen that way", which of course brings us back to predestination. But predestination is problematic, philosophically, because it makes everyone essentially blame-free for everything they do - it's all been prewritten. So if I decide to steal my sister's ATM card and go to the casino, somehow, that was meant to happen... who am I to resist the unfathomable way that the universe unfolds? But I had a hell of a night. 

You are wrestling with questions that believers and scholars have tangled with for centuries. Such is the nature of belief, for people who ask questions. 

[Firefly 35]

The Bible was written thousands of years ago based on stories that were part of oral tradition for far longer.  There may have been a specific context for certain verses in its original time and place that is no longer true today.  For example some historians say that the Bible's condemnation of LBGTQ people was because in that era there was no or minimal knowledge/prevention of STDs and gay sex would spread them more quickly than M/F sex.  That might also be why the Bible insists on only one partner, more partners would have meant more risk of infection. 

Regarding free will specifically, that is a question that many religions have grappled with and I don't think there's any clear answer.

[FretaBWet]

This is a very good question. At this past Sunday's Mass one of the readings was about God telling Jonah to travel to the city of Ninevah and tell them to repent. Our Priest in his sermon explained that the passage was just a small part of Jonah's story. He explained that in today's time it would be the equivalent of God asking any average Catholic in the United States to travel to Russia and tell them to repent. Jonah refused God's request and instead booked himself on a ship and went to sea. In a raging storm Jonah went overboard and was swallowed by a whale and ended up on a beach. Jonah then went to Nivavah. The point was Jonah had free will. God could have made Jonah do whatever he wanted done just as he controlled the storm and the whale. I'll admit that if God or his Angels came to me my first reaction would be to check myself into a psyche ward but upon showing me his power I would do whatever he asked of me.

Hugs,

Freta

[randominterestedperson]

Free will is not absolute.

We can make our own choices, but our choices are built upon our character, which has been shaped by our genes and our environment. So if you were to adjust character and environment to such a degree that a person only has a single choice left to make, you take away his free will.

This has happened to me before.

Sometimes things just happen to you, sometimes you are put in an impossible situation where you don't have another choice to make, but that doesn't prevent you from learning from it anyway, repenting, and doing better in the future. Reality is complex, and free will no less so, but complex things can be simplified for convenience and then suddenly all nuance and flexibility disappears.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

This is one of those terms that has been used to the point of being meaningless. By that I mean it has been used to name things from the choice to think or know or not to think or know to they idea that you could wish away an oncoming 18-wheeler travelling straight at you at 87 miles an hour

I support the first meaning as does anoyone who tries to argue in favor of determinism. They are depending on your ability to change your mind if persuaded to. If they were correct they would not bother since they would know it was impossible since your actions would be pre-determined. This is called "affirmation by denial". It is like the claim of "there are no absolutes". The claim itself is made as an absolute. So if it were true, then it wouled be an absolute, and therefore, false