(June 25, 2015 at 1:33 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:That doesn't really answer my question. Having the choice seems like a losing proposition. Letting god do the choosing works perfectly, letting me do the choosing has a chance of failing with tragic consequences.(June 25, 2015 at 1:22 pm)Tonus Wrote: If the only benefit of free will is that it gives me the option to condemn myself to hell for an eternity, then it's not very useful. If "me being me" can only result in eternal damnation, what good is free will?You have the choice not to.
Is there a way in which having free will is a benefit for me? You say it's what makes me who I am. If who I am is a person who will spend eternity away from god, isn't it better for me to be whoever god decides I am? Pretend that I have no free will. Aside from my decision to serve or reject Jesus, how would my life be different? In what other ways can I use free will, that would make it worthwhile to risk offending god?
I'm being serious here, this isn't a trick question. Frankly, this whole idea came about from a different topic here and I'm curious as to how Christians approach the question. I think it's a legitimate concern with the issue of free will, and am wondering if there's something I'm missing.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
