Does God have free will?

[Sakarja]

I guess it might sound obvious that he does have free will. But what about scriptures like this:

"If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself."
2. Timothy 2:13

Now the Christian revelation of God is that he is love, he is good and so forth. Usually good and evil are defined through God: God is love, so love is good, and so forth. And good and evil couldn't be different unless God was different.
But the question is, to what extent are God's actions determined by who he is, love? And if his actions come from his being, does he really have a free will? The scriptures say: "he cannot deny himself." Does this deny his free will? Can God choose to do differently, if he is really love? And if he can't choose differently, does that make him like a robot and take morality away from him (morality requires free will). It seems difficult to see how a God without free will would truly be worthy of our worship.

One solution I have for this came after thinking about God's choices. Since he is eternal, it would make sense that his decisions must be proceeding eternally forth from him, they cannot be made at any point in time. Perhaps who God is is eternally determined by his own free choice, and because of this God is eternally love. And of course I can always say that I don't understand God totally - after all, I don't even understand the universe or even myself anywhere near totally.

What do you all think?
Hello to everyone btw, I am very new here but this is a question I have.

[markporter]

Yes there are characteristics of God which are essential to him, Love being one of them, however most christians would maintain that there is freedom within these....there are some things which he can do merely befitting his nature, and not essential to it....such as for example, creating the universe.

[Xmansmommy]

beloved1, :hi: Welcome to TW! Fantastic question! One I've considered a great deal myself, even if I don't know the answer to it. But I'll be looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks. Thanks for asking...I enjoy good questions. I think we all learn by them. :yipee:

[Smitten]

I don't see the dilemma in God acting from "who he is" or his own personal being. How much more free can one be? If one acted contrary to their being and things outside of their being were impinging on their will, then that, to me, would be violation of free will. God acting contrary to his own desires/nature and for no apparent reason at all is a scary thought.

[Stephen]

I'd say God has a free will, but a free will to do anything within His righteous nature.

For instance, God can choose to do one righteous act or another, but He does not have the freedom to go against His very nature; because His nature will determine what He chooses.

So His will is not free in the sense that He can choose against His very essense, but it is free to do whatever fits with His nature.

[geebob]

If you don't define free will, it is not clear how this is a problem.

[Stephen]

Free Will- Freedom to choose what one wills without coercion

Bad definition probably

[Sheepdog]

Stephen, i wouldn't use your definition, as it would allow a form of determinism to be free will (i.e. what causes you to will certain things?). i'd prefer to, "given mulitple options, one may forgoe some option(s) and choose other(s), without coercion."

to answer the question, i believe God can do anything (even illogical things? i haven't come to a conclusion on that one). but, He intentionally limits Himself to choosing certain things, like whatever is holy, right, and good.

[mickiel]

There is NOTHING God cannot do. Period. He can think in all possible ways, he can exist on all levels, his will can be whatever he wishes it to be. There is NO LIMIT to God. God IS, his will IS, and he can make his will anything. Gods thoughts become living legacy, living reality, eternal law forever. God is perfection personified, so he is in complette control of his will, his temperment. Can you imagine a being of this magnitude having a hissy-fit, or getting mad and loosing it. He could crack the fabric of reality, he IS the fabric of reality. This is why i am so dumbfounded at christianity, the professed follewrs of this being. They seem to think God cannot save all of humanity, or even more amazeing, that he does not even want to. They think a great mind like this couldnot come up with a plan that would not loose any of his creations. Simply astounding how we miscalculate the power of Gods will.

[bar Jonah]

If God can sin, He is not a greatest conceivable being. And how can a mere human being conceive of a greater being than God?


I will say this first -- I stand on the above statement very strongly. But beyond that, I don't have a real strong position on this issue as of yet, though I have pondered it on occasion. So anything from here on should be taken in with that understanding -- not much more than thinking aloud. And I'm certainly interested to see the ideas put forth in this thread. (Although I wholeheartedly disagree with Mickiel's ridiculous assertion that God can sin.)

So, all that said, here is my current leaning, beginning with my presuppositions.

First, I presuppose that God's nature is perfect. Not mostly, or almost, but absolutely perfect. Second, I recognize that God's omnipotence has certain logical limitations, but only within the limitations of logic, and these are false limitations created by our imperfect language -- "God can't create a round square, can't create a rock so big He cannot lift it, etc." Third, I therefore presuppose that while God does have free action, He may not necessarily have free will.

A person may have free will (e.g. the will to fly through the air, unaided) but may not have free action (i.e. the actual ability to do so). On the other hand, a chimpanzee may have the free action to use sign language (all the necessary muscles and other physical ability) but if untrained, does not have the free will to do so. This is essentially the argument Calvinists use to describe their definition of Total Depravity -- a man has the free action to repent, but simply does not have the free will to choose to do so.

Fourth presupposition, just so everyone knows -- I am far from being a Calvinist, as I am an Open Theist, one who is about as diametrically opposite of Calvinism as one can be and still be within the pale of Christianity. However, I may use an analogy from Calvinst doctrine, applying it not to mankind but to God to explain my reasoning.

Fifth presupposition -- no two mutually exclusive choices can be equally best, for basically the same reasons there cannot be more than one Supreme Being.

Hypothetical. God is faced with a situation in which He can commit action A or action B. No two mutually exclusive choices can be equally best, therefore one is better than the other. If God is perfectly righteous in character, He must take the best course of action. If He takes the less perfect choice of action in any situation, He is not perfectly righteous, just mostly or almost completely righteous at best.

Therefore, conclusion -- Because God must always take the very best course of action in every situation, without exception, and because no two mutually exclusive choices can be equally best, therefore God never has a "choice" as we know it. If God is perfectly righteous, He must ALWAYS act perfectly righteously, without exception.

Because of this, I view free will as being indicative of a less-than-perfect being. An absolutely perfect being (God being the only one) therefore cannot have free will, and this is a good thing, not a bad thing. He may have free action,, but no free will.

But I am VERY open to other views on this subject, and I look forward to what others put forward here. (So long as they do not impune the character of God as Mickiel just did.)

[Smitten]

RightIdea,


If God can sin, He is not a greatest conceivable being. And how can a mere human being conceive of a greater being than God?
Who would God sin against? God can't sin because the word is meaningless as far as God's actions go. He isn't subject to any law. Humans sin against God, he has given us a moral law and we sin by breaking it. There is no law that God can break so he can't sin. But this doesn't limit his will in any way.


Hypothetical. God is faced with a situation in which He can commit action A or action B. No two mutually exclusive choices can be equally best, therefore one is better than the other. If God is perfectly righteous in character, He must take the best course of action. If He takes the less perfect choice of action in any situation, He is not perfectly righteous, just mostly or almost completely righteous at best.

This doesn't work because there is no standard of goodness apart from God by which to judge his possible actions.

[bar Jonah]

If there is no absolute right and wrong, then God's standard is subjective and arbitrary. Is that your belief? :hrm:

[Blake Reas]

Today @ 10:07 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=233640#post233640)
RightIdea:

If there is no absolute right and wrong, then God's standard is subjective and arbitrary. Is that your belief? :hrm:


Are you saying there is an abslolute right and wrong outside of God? If so then there is something that is self existent besides God namely good. If so were does this come from?

Blake
:duh:

[bar Jonah]

Straw man.

All good DOES come from God. It is not a thing that exists outside of God. God is absolutely righteous. Absolute righteousness is a characteristic of a Supreme Being. Any being that is not perfectly righteous is by definition not a Supreme Being, or "greatest conceivable being."

Are you saying, rather that God arbitrarily chooses what will be good and what will be evil? God could just as easily have chosen by free will to make murder and rape and lying to be righteous acts?

[Smitten]

RightIdea,


If there is no absolute right and wrong, then God's standard is subjective and arbitrary. Is that your belief?
What standard can there be that transcends God?

How can God's standard be subjective? Subjective to what? Another higher transcending absolute?

[bar Jonah]

Smitten:
RightIdea,

What standard can there be that transcends God?

How can God's standard be subjective? Subjective to what? Another higher transcending absolute?
I didn't say it transcended God! Read my post. Oy vay... :doh:

[Blake Reas]

Yesterday @ 10:18 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=233649#post233649)
RightIdea:

[quote]Straw man.
No, it was more like a question.:hrm:


All good DOES come from God. It is not a thing that exists outside of God. God is absolutely righteous. Absolute righteousness is a characteristic of a Supreme Being. Any being that is not perfectly righteous is by definition not a Supreme Being, or "greatest conceivable being."

Are you saying, rather that God arbitrarily chooses what will be good and what will be evil? God could just as easily have chosen by free will to make murder and rape and lying to be righteous acts?

I think I see what you are saying now. The last post was not that clear. Like God being the grounds for logic he is also the grounds for Morality because he is perfectly good by his very nature. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Blake

[bar Jonah]

No problem. Like I said, it IS circular logic, but in a good way.

The concepts of righteousness are inextricably tied to the very nature of any Supreme Being, by definition. Righteousness isn't a thing greater than God, apart from God... or under God such that He can choose not to be righteous.

[Blake Reas]

Today @ 02:01 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=233805#post233805)
RightIdea:

No problem. Like I said, it IS circular logic, but in a good way.

The concepts of righteousness are inextricably tied to the very nature of any Supreme Being, by definition. Righteousness isn't a thing greater than God, apart from God... or under God such that He can choose not to be righteous.

I see what you were talking about now. I think I misread your post and freaked :lol:. I am good at that you now!

Blake

[bar Jonah]

Blake Reas:
I see what you were talking about now. I think I misread your post and freaked :lol:. I am good at that you now!

Blake
What exactly do you mean by THAT? :brood:

[Sakarja]

Thanks for all the responses! It's been interesting. :) I'd like to develop this further by asking some more questions.

I guess the definition of free will really is crucial here, and I think Stephen and sheepdog gave the definition I was operating with here. Do you guys have a better definition? It'd be great to hear it.

Biblically, one example we have of free will is Adam and Eve. There were two trees in the garden, and they were free, without coercion the inside or on the outside, to do what they wanted. Adam and Eve were free, it seems, to choose between good and evil. Were they freer than God? Yet we are made in the image of God, so could they have been? Any ideas?


I don't see the dilemma in God acting from "who he is" or his own personal being. How much more free can one be? If one acted contrary to their being and things outside of their being were impinging on their will, then that, to me, would be violation of free will.

This response by Smitten seems intuitively right to me, but I guess the question could still be made, does God have freedom to choose to be different? Maybe asking this is like asking if God can commit suicide (that is, can God choose not to be God), and that like asking if God can create triangular circles - meaningless. Anyway, do you guys have any more thoughts to add... Is God's nature determined by his will or does his nature determine his will? If his will is determined by his nature then can it really be free?

What about this one: Can God be really moral if he doesn't have free will? For us, morality demands free will because without free will one cannot be responsible for one's actions.. but God can't be responsible to anyone except himself. Maybe moral is the wrong word to use of God and he's just simply the source of all good. Good and evil are real things because God is real. They are actually more real than we are because we are only created by God, but God has always been good and has defined evil.

[bar Jonah]

Beloved, it occurs to me that you're presupposing that it's a good thing for God to be free. Maybe it's a good thing that God is not free? After all, if God acts in manner that is less than perfection righteous, would He not cease to be God? And would this not be exactly what you just mentioned -- God "committing suicide" or God ceasing to be God?


beloved1:
What about this one: Can God be really moral if he doesn't have free will? For us, morality demands free will because without free will one cannot be responsible for one's actions.. but God can't be responsible to anyone except himself. Maybe moral is the wrong word to use of God and he's just simply the source of all good. Good and evil are real things because God is real. They are actually more real than we are because we are only created by God, but God has always been good and has defined evil.
I would posit that God has no free will because He must be perfectly righteous, by definition.

As for us, we must have free will in order to be moral, yes. Why? Because we are unrighteous to begin with! Because we are less than perfect! This is exactly the point.

[Sakarja]

Rightidea, I guess the idea that it is good for God to have a choice comes from a comparison with us men - if we were like robots without free will our love really wouldn't be real. I've found this to be a very good explanation of why it was good for God to create beings with free will (love is the highest ethic). But you are saying that God must be loving by defition, otherwise he wouldn't be the perfect being, and so it's a good thing that he can't choose to be unloving. I had to think about that one, but I think you may well be right.
My question would be, though: does God need to have free will to be really perfectly loving and therefore perfectly good? And if he doesn't, then why do we have to have it? Understood this way, the idea would seem to contradict the reason why we have free will.
Based on what you wrote, Rightidea, maybe his being must be LOVE, and so he must be loving, he is LOVE and all his actions are actions of perfect love. Otherwise he wouldn't be the perfect being and so He wouldn't be God. Maybe the answer to why our love requires free will to be real is in the fact that we are not self-sufficient beings like God - probably God couldn't have created other self-sufficient being like himself - a self-sufficient being must be self-existent (eternal) by definition. Our nature is not automatically love, we have to choose it. But God doesn't have to choose to be loving, he is love. Maybe his love is just infinitely higher than our love and its of a type where you don't have to choose it for the love to be real. We are made in the image of God and our love is but a reflection of his love - for this kind of love we have to choose it before it can be real.

I'm not really sure this makes sense, maybe you guys can help me further.

[bar Jonah]

Yes, it makes sense.

Next question? :riwink:

[Sakarja]

Heh, I have to admit I've ran out of questions on this matter for now :). Maybe I'll think of some more later. Thanks for the help.

[A Beautiful Truth]

Hi guys, I'm new to the group.

This thread especially interested me because I had a similar question. I will not start a new thread because it is really a continuation of the former thread.

How about Jesus? Did Jesus have free will? And if He did, then herein is an example of free will and "election" (all prophesies indicated that Christ would go to the cross) working at the same time, is it not?

Let me be specific on this. If Christ had free will *not* to go to the cross, as his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane indicates, then what of the prophesies of the O.T.?

God knew in advance Jesus would go to the cross, the prophetic O.T. is quite clear, and yet, Jesus had the freedom to choose not to go to the cross.

Further, if Christ had not the ability to not go to the cross, then what is the big deal about Him having to learn obedience?

"He learned obedience through the things He suffered." How to learn obedience if the option to not do the thing to which you were predestined were not an option?

Again, if Christ had not free will, then what is the big deal about him being tempted? It would have been too easy, He could not be our faithful High Priest if the option of disobedience were not an option.

What do you think?

~Charleen

[scleaver]

“I AM WHO I AM” so if he is who he is then there is no becoming nor a from whence he came. God is immutable in his essence and the notion of a free will or making decisions is not possible. This is not possible because of an analytical contradiction. Being, his ontological status, would be contradicted if it changed and change is the essence of choice, decision, will, etc. Change denotes a moving away from or a moving towards something. These categories are easily applied to humanity as we are moving either away from a constant or towards a constant. Here God is the constant, the great I AM. In addition all choice if you can even call it choice is that which moves, initiates, or impresses upon one’s self. There is nothing outside of God to impress upon him and there are no “battles” inside him.