If so, why is there evil?
If not, then do you agree you have no free will in Heaven where evil doesn't exist?
2007-08-14 04:58:56 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
You only have free will without evil if your will lines up with God's will.
You are right, since evil will not make it to heaven, we will all do the Father's will. I don't mind that at all, I do His will now.
grace2u
2007-08-14 05:05:20 · answer #1 · answered by Theophilus 6 · 2⤊ 3⤋
Honestly, I've pondered this myself. I think that it goes back to the idea of good without bad. People generally don't appreciate that which is good unless they have something bad or less good to compare it with. So for good to exist, evil has to exist, in my opinion. It keeps things balanced.
Free will cannot *initially* exist without evil because we have a nature that is not all good and not all bad, but desires things from both.
Honestly I am just speculating. I think these are really great questions and I really am not sure of the answers.
2007-08-14 05:19:46 · answer #2 · answered by Linz ♥ VT 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We will have free will in Heaven but we will have full knowledge of the results of evil. Also we will not have" time" any more to decide for evil if we have already commited ourselves to good while we were still caught up in space/time in our mortal human life.
Unlike angels, our decisions in this life are time/space and chemical bodily brain/.spirit mind conditioned.
With free will we could have cooperated with grace before the Fall and rejected choises for evil. Through the Grace of Christ it is possible for free will volition choises to be without moral evil although in this life all our decisions will be effected by our ignorances.
Evil is a warping or lack of something good and can only be actualized as moral evil through the use of free will,however conditioned by the exercise of the free will of others it may be.
2007-08-14 05:11:53 · answer #3 · answered by James O 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
First, you need an understanding of "evil".
Evil is not the opposite of good, but it's absense, just as darkness is not the opposite of light, but it's absense. (That is to say, you can remove the light from a room, but once all the light is gone, you can not add more "darkness" to it.)
In the same way, cold is not the opposite of hot, but it's absense. Once you remove all the heat from a body or space, you can not add any more "cold" to the body.
So is the same with evil. You don't need evil to have good, since evil is merely the absense of good.
We have a free will to choose to do what is right, but we have always chosen for self-centered purposes. We choose that which brings the greatest amount of personal pleasure, or the least amount of pain, and we violate God's Laws.
We have become slaves to sin, and just as a slave has no rights, so we have lost our rights to choose.
Jesus said "When the Son sets you free, you shall be free, indeed."
2007-08-14 05:06:21 · answer #4 · answered by no1home2day 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I know where you are going with this, but I really don't see the correlation. You may as well ask, "Christians: Is it possible to have free will without toothpaste." Evil is not a prerequisite for free will, and free will is not a prerequisite for evil.
2007-08-14 05:22:10 · answer #5 · answered by Todd 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I believe 'evil' is a transitory illusion that is here for us to overcome. Kind of the metaphysical 'bar-bell' in the spiritual gym. But yes, I think it is possible to have free will without evil. God WANTS us to have free will, we are the creative and emotional part of God.
For example, a woman may decide to be a career mom or a stay at home mom. Neither one is 'evil', but when she makes her choice, she 'creates' her own experience via the exercise of free will.
Free will is another name for creativity. At least in my humble opinion.
2007-08-14 06:21:49 · answer #6 · answered by Fancy That 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I can very easily see several alternatives to the "good and evil" choice used by Christianity - but then I'm an atheist.
I'm sorry, but I can not accept the definition of evil as "the absence of good". There are clearly actions that have no good nor evil in them, and there are clearly actions that are extremely evil.
2007-08-14 05:07:43 · answer #7 · answered by Pirate AM™ 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes. I'm not sure what else you want me to say except that Adam and Eve had freewill without being evil before the fall and that the only reason our freewill leads us to sin is because we are born sinners but when Christ takes away our sin with his help we can use our freewill without being evil.
2016-05-17 10:39:18 · answer #8 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Of course it's possible.
Just choose, of your own FREE WILL, not to do anything evil.
2007-08-14 06:54:31 · answer #9 · answered by VITCH 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
looks like evil is a way for them to give up their free will seems to work too.
2007-08-14 05:05:22 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋