Have we forgotten what Freewill is about?

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We have no choice...but to choose.

If you think about it, everything that we do or think involves choice. I see free will as really our interaction with reality, whether physically or mentally. Even when we entertain certain thoughts, those thoughts present a kind of reality which we make choices/judgments about/in.

Free will is the fundamental condition of an autonomous human.

The term freedom is used alot, especially in philosophy (where it has a different meaning than in the modern vernacular). True freedom is found in doing what is most excellent (the good or love etc). Our will is only free when we will what is most good. If we will what is not most good, our will is not free, it is corrupted. For example, choosing to work hard for my money vs. stealing money from someone else. If I will that I should earn my own money honestly, my will is free. If I will that I should be able to take what I want merely because I want it, then my will is not free, it is imprisoned by my own wants....Show more

Unfortunately, we live in a time in which the concept of freewill has been brought to a level which it was never supposed to go. I don't even mean that from a religious perspective, but also a political and practical perspective.

Freewill, in the modern sense, has become linked with the ideas of individualism and libertinism. These ideas that, we as a human society are simply a collection of individuals with a divinely or political ordained freewill. This idea that a person is beholden to none but his own ambitions and judgement. But that was never what it was supposed to be.

I find it facinating that if you look at theories presented over the ages, you run into freewill as a concept being presented in very similer ways by both religious scholars and political philosophers alike. It is almost as if, the theologians set up a relationship between God and Man based on responcibility and freewill, while political thinker are doing the same with Government and her subjects, on could even argue that in Enlightenment ideology, Government and the nation state became the "New Divine."

But both would argue freewill is simply a method of maintaining balace. Balance beween liberty and responcibility, faith and obligation, pleasure and duty. Freewill is what allows us to get a slice of all things in moderation.

So in a political sence, Locke and Russeau argue the Social Contract. That all man is free to enjoy the fruits of prosperity, but this isn't a individual prosperity, but a collective prosperity. One contributes to the group in his own way, his most productive way, the group is enriched by that productivity, and the entire nation benefits from a collective prosperity.

The same applies to religion. We find the best path for us to enteract with God. Some become monks, other priest, still other remain faithful laypeoples. Some protect the poor, others protect the weak. It is our freewill to choose our path, but then, together, when all men are made equil we taste to fruit of our labor. This isn't an individual salvation, or individual prosparity, but a communial one.

I think thats what we in the Modern world have lost. We have sold away our freewill and now we are governed, we are ruled, by the tyrant that is lust for wealth and power. We have lost that sense of obligation to the communtiy and the sense of celebration through the community. We dont realize that individual wealth, individual glory, or invidual prospertiry is enjoyed by one, but should be enjoyed by all....Show more

Free will is all about doing what makes you happy, what fulfills your current agenda whether that is wasting time here arguing or out in the world feeding the needy. Free will is the lack of control, the idea that we are in control of what we do.

This is what America is suppose to be about, what we were about after the revolution but we have lost sight of that. The government is taking away more of our free will each and every day and people are stand by and not doing what needs to be done. We need an uprising, we were so close in the 70's but I was not around then and sincerely hope that I live to see this country be taken back by the real rulers of this place: the people.

That's part of the problem I have with Christianity. They claim that they have free will, that God gives it to them but that isn't really true. I mean yes, they can do things differently then he supposedly wants them too but if they do then he condemns them to Hell. How is that free will when a lot of people are controlled by that very fear? So maybe indirectly God takes away the free will of those sheepish enough to stand and take the control just as Hitler controlled those foolish enough to stand by and wait for him to do it....Show more

Well, geeeesh, now I have to use my brain to think, and I have such a head ache..... I really do !!..... but, I get what you are trying to say..... Freewill has become a *dirty* word it seems..... Freewill is simply the ability to make a choice..... To weigh the options and take what ever action each individual deems as right, at the time.... If you are in love, you use that free will to show it or not to.... Hungry ? you make the choice to eat or not and what to eat or not..... Sleepy ? you make the choice to go to bed, take a nap, party all night etc..... I am using my free will, even with a head ache, to answer your nice question.... and now I am gonna make the choice to go and take something for that head ache....... go in peace.... God bless...Show more

Great question!

For the past several months I've been asking God to help me forgive the actions of someone who hasn't a clue of what he did.

Recently, as in two days ago, the idea that I can choose to forgive came into my mind. I've stopped asking God to help me forgive, because my mind is made up - it's not necessary anymore. Now whenever I mentally get reminded of what this person did, I counteract the thought by thinking I have forgiven him. What he did is moot.

God answered my prayer by telling me something so simple, yet so complex....Show more