/lit/ - Literature

>>19024897
>>19024891

The human soul, lads. That's where our freedom lies. We are not mere machines, or computers; God has given us free will, with the freedom, in particular, to choose between good and evil.

>>18747142
Oops, forgot pic.

>>13847566
I'm a Catholic and I think that's a question that's difficult to answer.

There are technical theological/philosophical answers which I'm not sure I find persuasive.

I believe in free will as a matter of faith. I don't think it's an unreasonable belief, once one accepts the idea of God and creation.

A God that can create the universe, and you, and me, can also give his human creatures the *gift* of free will, which is how I understand it.

Also helpful:
(i) the distinction between matter and spirit that Frank Sheed discusses in the early pages of his useful book "Theology for Beginners." It is a surprisingly difficult concept to really get one's head around.

https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Beginners-Frank-Sheed/dp/1621641198

Free will is a *spiritual* gift. I don't know that's it's possible to make sense of it in strictly material/mechanical terms.

(ii) Flannery O'Connor's remark about free will, which she made in her introduction to the second edition of her novel, Wise Blood -- attached. To wit: we have different wills, as it were, pushing and pulling within us. *That* is the relevant context in which free will arises.

Catholics believe in both free will *and* predestination, btw. The subject gets into some rather deep waters theologically, including historical disputes about, e.g., Augustine's position on the subject (both Catholics and Protestants claim Augustine on the subject predestination).

Fernand Prat's two-volume "The Theology of Saint Paul" (circa 1927) is a deep but accessible (and very enlightening) dive into Pauline theology from a Catholic pov that offers Prat's learned views on Augustine and predestination -- noting how Augustine's views changed, and those changes, plus a certain ambiguity in some of his remarks, gave rise to Catholic-Protestant disputes about which "side" Augustine is on. Not being the scholarly type myself, his exposition of this is all a bit much for me to keep straight in my mind a week (or perhaps 10 minutes) after I've finished reading it. But he does sort it out with some considerable scholarly authority, while being a fairly good prose stylist, to boot.

PS: Underlined remark upon opening to a random page in Prat:

>The will of God respect the liberty of his creatures and does not always attain its effect. That is why we pray every day that the will of God may be done more and more, on earth as it is in heaven.
-F. Prat, Theology of St. Paul, vol. 2, p. 81.