How do Catholics understand the concept of free will and an all knowing God?

Question

What I mean is if God knowns what you are going to do than how can you posses the free will to make a choice?

I don't think you understand the question. If someone knows what you are going to do it doesn't mean that they are forcing you to do it but you do not have the free will to do anything else. How to Catholics, specifically, reslove this question?

Daver I like your anwser but in your story I atop the building don't know if one of the drivers will veer away or not, with God he already knows that neither driver will. If the are going to have an accident and their is nothing they can do about it how could they have ever had the option to avoid the accident? Is this the Catholic reasoning to the problem?

Answer 1

Both Augustine and Aquinas are quite comfortable with answering your query with insights that are fairly close to pre-destination.

Investigate what is called the Molinist controversey, which will detail the manner in which the Jesuits and the Dominicans sought to resolve this neuralgic theological dilemna. The arguments became so heated that an appeal was made to the pope to resolve the issue. Representatives from both orders presented their understanding, made their cases-- and the pope retired to his rooms to make his decision. He never returned with a formal teaching on the matter, so in regards to your question, we are all still waiting for what Catholics refer to as a magisterial teaching.

One was of looking at this issue, that does not resolve the matter, but I have found somewhat helpful, is simply to accept that nothing like absolute freedom is a quality of a human nature. Our freedom is only a contingent reality enabled by God's permissive will. We have choices only because God permits these choices. God can foresee the outcome of all the potentiality of our choices, but does not choose for us in terms of a particular judgment. Therefore we have some measure of freedom to decide, but it is always a contingent and finite expression of freedom.

Answer 2

First let's understand a few basic Truths:
1) God knows, literally, everything.
2) God gives us freedom of will so that we may choose to follow Him. God wants volunteers, not conscripts.

Imagine yourself on top of a building of some 15-20 floors. You are standing over in one of the four corners. You look down and you see an east-bound car speeding towards an intersection at the corner of the building you are standing above. You look to your side and see a northbound car speeding towards the same intersection.

You know, from your vantage point, that if at least one car does not begin slowing down soon, there is going to be an accident.

From each of the driver's perspectives, neither one is aware of the other speeding car, so each keeps on going as if there is no obstacle. Your being aware of both cars, and thee inherent danger of a collision, has no effect on the free will of the drivers.

From your vantage point, you see both cars speeding along. Neither has slowed down and you can cleary see there is going to be a terrible accident. You know of the impending accident before the drivers do, but this reality is not having any effect of the free will of the drivers.

The drivers reach the intersection and, only now when it's too late, do they become aware of the immiment threat. There's an accident, people are hurt, it's a terrible scene - a scene that you knew was coming even before the participants did - because of your vantage point.

God knows what's going to happen before it happens. Possessing this knowledge ahead of time does not directly or indirectly influence the free will of those involved.

This is how our free will co-exists with God's infinite knowledge. To believe otherwise, in my opinion, takes a bigger leap of faith than it does to understand the Truth.

ADDITION:

You said, <>

My point exactly - you don't know what the drivers are thinking. And, even if you could read their minds, that would not change the course of events experienced by the drivers.

God knows everything. You have to understand WHY God knows everything if this is going to make any sense to you. We, you and me, live in a physical temporal realm, in which everything has a beginning and an end. "Time", that is "measuring the passage of" is largely an invention of the human race.

God is timeless. He is above time, beyond it, however you want to phrase it. God is the creator of time, but He is not subject to it. God currently exists in the past, He is in the present, and He is in the future. When we say God is "everywhere", we are not only referring to a physical presence here and there, we are also referring to temporal presence, past, present and future.

When you come to understand this reality, it's easy to understand how God can know everything without effecting our free will.

Answer 3

*Is Catholic*

The Catholic metaphysical understanding of "free will" is not the ability to make any and all choices, rather "free will" is the ability of the will to make the choice that is consistant with the beings nature and teleological end.

Catholics believe that the will of man is damaged, it is not utterly free but inclined to choose goods that are not in accord with the hierarchy of the good. The will is still free because it can still chose according to the good and according to its natural end without the need for sanctifying grace (Lutherans and most Prots. disagree).

Catholic understanding of an all knowing God is not the same as saying that God's knowledge is akin to somebody who has read the book or who sees the future. Rather God is all knowing. Not only does He know all that will occur, but He knows all possibilities that can occur. All this knowledge is known simultaneously and eternally. Furthermore, all that exists in the created world is willed by God, ether explicitly or passively by allowing it to occur. Every moment of space-time is sustained by the creative powers of God. At any moment everything could end, but this is not God's plan He created things to be and to know Him.

Your question then: The structures and situations and processes that are involved in a human choice are both known by God and created by God. The human choice co-operates in this activity of God if the human freely chooses to act in accord with the good and his natural end. If the choice does not co-operate, a disjoint enters into creation, but this disjoint is known by God and allowed by God because it fulfills a larger purpose.

In response to your question to Daver, God's knowledge of future events does not lock individuals into their choices. God's knowledge of the future, because it knows all possible futures including the chosen one, allows the future to be accomplished. If the future was not known, it could not be accomplished.

Consider this: There is a tendency in the west to see everything linearly, ordered and very mathematic. However, with this subject, think of Music. Each individual place a specific part on a specific instrument. This is the individual's nature. The music is conducted by God, who knows all the parts and how the music will sound when all the instruments play their parts. This is the future that God knows. When the Music is played, the instruments may play in accord to their nature and their part, which is dependant upon God's creating their nature and the effort that they put into their part, this is co-operation with the hierarchy of the good. If an individual does not do this and plays wrongly, he still plays in accord with his nature. The conductor, hearing the wrong playing can adjust his conducting, slowing the piece down, speeding it up, having other sections play louder, etc. so that the piece is completed in accord with the design of the music.

Answer 4

Knowing what someone will do doesn't mean you make them do it. God is watching us but he doesn't step in. He may drop a subtle hint sometimes to nudge us in the right direction but he never forces our hand. We decide.

It's like when you're watching a movie you've seen before. You know what the character is about to do. But that doesn't mean you make them do it. You are an observer.

If God stepped in & moved us around like little pawns then we wouldn't be free. People blame God when terrible things happen. They say how could he be so cruel not to save us. But that's the price of freewill. On this planet, we are on our own. He hopes we make the best decisions but he doesn't make them for us. Freewill means you are in control of your life. You choose good or evil. God doesn't step in until the afterlife. That's when he decides your fate, based on how you lived your life: either forever in paradise (Heaven) or an eternity in Hell.

Answer 5

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

+ The Almighty +

Of all the divine attributes, only God's omnipotence is named in the Creed: to confess this power has great bearing on our lives.

We believe that his might is universal, for God who created everything also rules everything and can do everything. God's power is loving,

http://www.nccbuscc.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt1art1p3.htm

+ Free Will +

God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions.

"God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."

http://www.nccbuscc.org/catechism/text/pt3sect1chpt1art3.htm

+ Example +

I have a small child, I know and love this child with all my heart and mind. This child looks at a cookie on the table. I know this child well enough that I know she will take the cookie. The child takes the cookie. Does the child have free will or did I force the child to take the cookie?

God loves and knows us infinitely more than I know that child. Is it not reasonable that God knows what we will do and still not force our actions?

+ With love in Christ.

Answer 6

Just because God knows doesn't mean we will make the right choice. We can choose to sin, the only sin we have no choice over is the original sin which is cleared up with baptism as a baby.

Answer 7

Because for us, here on earth, time is a linear progression; days, weeks, months, years, always moving in one direction. This is where we live out our lives. God is not bound by the constraints of time; there are no Monday mornings in eternity. "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever". So He knows what we're going to do because He's already seen us do it. That doesn't mean we don't have free will, in our time, here. I do not believe that we're "predestined" to do anything. We have inclinations, but ultimately we chose rather to follow them or not.

Answer 8

Too many times we use our puny brains to rationalize life and God. If we must try to sort your question, lets just figure he knows all the POSSIBLE outcomes, the intermediate choices are ours.

Don't worry about questions like you ask, just:

Accept that you must make the RIGHT choices in your own life and all else will take care of itself.

Answer 9

Even though you have freewill and some events in the future are contingent, like your choices, they are known to God.
But it is also said that God's knowledge is the cause of things. So how do you reconcile these ? The short answer
is that things are contingent because of their proximate causes .

Answer 10

it is the ego that thinks that u made the choice. in fact u think like that because u are made to think like that.