Talk:Free will in theology

Christian Communism

 * Do not, however, remove statements that you believe to be both true and common knowledge, simply because they aren't sourced. Don't, for instance, remove a reference to "earth's elliptical orbit" simply because the writer has not supported the assertion that planetary orbits are elliptical.


 * From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources

Free will is also a point of debate among both sides of the Christian communist theory. Because some Christians interpret the Bible as advocating that the ideal form of society is communism,[citation needed]....

Isn't this statement both true and common knowledge, thus not requiring a cite? (unsigned)


 * If it's "both true and common knowledge", then it should be easy to cite. I'm not sure everyone would agree that it is either, so that's why a cite would be in order. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, "some Christians" is allowable, but needlessly vague. People might like to know who exactly interprets the Bible in this way - what churches or individuals. A cite also serves to clear that up. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Roman Catholic view
The Roman Catholic view is not sufficiently explained, and although the current information is correct, it is parcellary compared to the Calvinist and Eastern Orthodox sections. ADM (talk) 13:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The writing of this section needs to be improved. It should be written into several paragraphs since the current single one is too packed and hard to read. Ethereal1m (talk) 08:06, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Eastern Orthodox views on Free Will
Dostoevsky seems to be a poor representation of the views of the Eastern Orthodox branches of Christianity. His written works are fiction, and while fiction may be used as a vehicle for expressing philosophical or theological concepts, it seems unlikely that his works were meant to be representational of his society's religious views. (unsigned)


 * I would welcome Dostoevsky's approach, especially in light of communist Christianity! I gather Dostoevsky was really a proto-anarchist influenced by Kropotkin.  Kropotkin was atheist, which makes Dostoevsky's approach more interesting.  The complaint that Dostoevsky was a fiction writer is irrelevant; so much of religion is parable.--John Bessa (talk) 17:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Atheism and Free Will
What possible stances could an atheist have? How could one view free will through an atheistic approach? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Ashleymatto) 16:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Evolution and free will
Knowing that empathy, or love, is God's will, and that higher empathy, as in spindle and mirror neurons, has evolved along different paths (elephants, whales, primates), and that lower empathy is apparently found even in invertebrates (octopus), it seems that evolution, through DNA, has will. I am certain that if there is advanced life elsewhere in the Universe, it has empathy. The way my writing has evolved, God and evolution are interchangeable.

If evolution ultimately creates compassion (without option), and compassion is the basis of religion, is not evolution spiritual? And does this not help us reconcile God's omnipresent power (or evolution's undeniable influences) with free will. We are the product of God, evolution, or both, yet, focusing on evolution, our individual acts, even launching nuclear weapons, are a personal, or even democratic, choice.

Where I go to church there has been no opposition to evolution (so far); the focus is on compassion (which is empathic) and generally being sensible in life with close adherence to the Bible. Hell is never mentioned and neither is the final damnation, which is nice (though I find the obsessive focus Christ's life as the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies to be a little repetitious).

The similarity between evolution and God's will are easy for me to reconcile because I use a version of the Internet protocol stack to abstract related concepts in social and psychological science, where every intelligent event strikes on every level--from the individual neural connections to machinations of society.

--John Bessa (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Alternative view on Free-Will
Although I am not Atheist, nor affiliated with any religious organization, I would like to posit my very basic understanding of Free-Will before you for possible subjective and objective research. Free-Will, as I understand it, is doing something that you do not feel like doing. What this means is acknowledging YET disobeying the ego's or body's habits, pains, depressions, agonies, sadness, and any other emotional state in order to objectively perform an objective task. Also, this very human ability, analogous to muscles, Free-Will is not just something we have, but something we strive to attain, analogous to growing larger muscles.

This is my understanding of Free-Will, please analyze its potential applications at your leisure.

Bibliographies

1. Weinberg, Rabbi Noah; 48 Ways to Wisdom free-audio lectures; Aish HaTorah International; 2002

2. Elan Golomb, Ph.D.; Trapped in the Mirror; Harper Paperbacks; March 28, 1995

3. Christopher S. Hyatt, Jack, and Dr. Willis; The Psychopath's Bible: For the Extreme Individual 3 Rev Exp edition; New Falcon Publications; November 1, 2003

4. Christopher S. Hyatt; To Lie Is Human: Not Getting Caught Is Divine; New Falcon Publications; March 15, 2004

5. Rhonda Byrne; The Secret; Atria Books/Beyond Words; November 28, 2006

6. Dan Millman; The Laws of Spirit: A Tale of Transformation; HJ Kramer/New World Library; September 2001

7. Daidoji Yuzan, D. E. Tarver; The Code of the Warrior; IUniverse; February 10, 2003

8. Yagyu Munenori, D. E. Tarver; The Way of the Living Sword; iUniverse, Inc.; August 4, 2003

9. Sun Tzu, Sun Pin, D. E. Tarver; The Art of War; iUniverse Star; April 19, 2002

10. Yamamoto Tsunetomo, D. E. Tarver; The Hagakure; iUniverse, Inc; November 26, 2002

11. Miyamoto Musashi, D. E. Tarver; The Book of Five Rings; IUniverse; January 4, 2004

12. Peter H. Gilmore; The Satanic Scriptures illustrated edition edition; Scapegoat Publishing; October 13, 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.54.142.84 (talk) 11:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Satanists
I once read a story suggesting that Satanists did not believe in free will, at least not in the sense that most religious people do, and were instead advocating views that extend from radical collectivism to radical individualism. This comes from the narrative on the war in heaven, where Satan and his fellow apostate angels disagreed with God on the topic of free will, and sought to construct a society in which men and women were essentially placed on the same level as farm animals. ADM (talk) 01:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism
Why is there no section on Zoroastrianism? Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions to offer free will in religion. Warrior4321Contact Me 14:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Make one!--John Bessa (talk) 17:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Free will in theology
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Free will in theology's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "books.google.com": From Torah: John Joseph Collins, "The Bible After Babel", (2005) From Karma in Hinduism: Krishnan, Yuvraj, "The Doctrine of Karma," 1997, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, pgs. 155-156, at http://books.google.com/books?id=_Bi6FWX1NOgC&pg=PA155&dq=Ramanuja+karma&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Ramanuja%20karma&f=false 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 07:45, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Catholicism Section needs work
I've worked on reformatting this section to put citations in their correct format and to rephrase the wording to avoid personal pronouns but then I came across the last section which I can't make sense of nor do I really see that it fits within a brief summary of free will within the Catholic Church. I am referring to the section that begins with "(Church: The Human Story of God, 221; Mensen als verhaal van God, 239) is intended..." I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. I suppose that what the author was trying to say was that book suggests that...but again, it seems off topic relative to the brief nature of the summary.

Also, this section seems to require more institutional perspectives, I will be adding a few from the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. --Ddragovic (talk) 10:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion of William Lane Craig
Why is the name "Prof William Lane Craig" not included here given he is the leading scholar in Free will, along with Alvin Plantinga??? Why is there no talk about "counterfactual knowledge", A and B theories of time, and molinism??? This article doesn't seem very scholarly or reflective of current academic research in the area... 156.22.3.1 (talk) 14:19, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

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Free Will in the Bible needs more work
The two "experts" in this section are a Jewish guy who became a Catholic and a "five-point Arminian." (BTW, five-point Arminian doesn't qualify as a Christian, any more than the Dali Lama qualifies.) Isn't that kin to including an unbiased article about Donald Trump written by his wife and daughter?

Free will isn't biblical, and yet this section clearly says it is without ever referencing where in the Bible it says it is. And I can neither add to nor subtract from what is written because it is so far away from what the title suggest it's supposed to be about, there is no way of cleaning it up apart from removing it. (Not fair to remove it, because whoever worked on it tried.)

How about someone find out what experts in mainstream denominations and Reformed Christians believe, as well as what you have here?

Atwhatcost (talk) 18:50, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Yup, it is disingenuous to claim that the Bible itself has a stance upon free will. People who interpret the Bible do, but they are not the Bible. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:34, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Why god allows crime?
If god helped us he would disrupt our "free will". Take the example of the rapist and the victim. God considers more precious the "free will" of the rapist than the physical harm and mental pain of the victim. Everyone supports the victims, but god, being magnanimous supports the rapist. One cannot blame god for rapes. The rapist's "free will" is responsible for the rape, and if god somehow interrupted the rape, that would go against the will of the rapist (that would make him or her sad, and that's bad). Why atheists don't understand basic things? If people don't like rapes they should use Vaseline. God has given an oath not to disrupt the "free will of humans". After a human dies, ONLY THEN the deceased will be judged by god. God punishes people after they die, as the actions caused by the "human free will" dictate. God's attitude towards the deceased is dictated by the "human free will". The "human free will" dictates to god what to do, and god slavishly obeys. God isn't god, because his god is the "human free will". The "human free will" is the only true god (according to the meta-analysis of religion, because according to neuroscience, there is no free will, instead natural and biochemical laws not consciously controlled because they are inherently probabilistic)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SthfBxQ0vZ0