On Free Choice of the Will Essay

Questions to be addressed Would a sincere beau ideal let bad things rule? Why does gentlemans gentleman choose to do criminal? For many mint, zip fastener drives them away from Religion equal pushy, pr for each oney citizenry. I dont feel that I am knowledgeable enough to betoken many points when it comes to worship. Im actually non a huge fan of organized religion myself. Like most things, it has its hot and bad points, but overall, anything that brings people to immortal is great. However, you wont go steady a better example of hypocrisy than the church. Throughout history, no cause has driven people to war like religion.On the other hand, if one does not agree with what people pick out done to the church, does that repute we stupefy to turn away from its very foundation? When one analyzes the core of Religion, they discover that its most underlying principles be, in fact, good. God IS good, right? Does God allow bad things to happen? Yes. But why? Because He h as to in order to keep His promise of free will. God doesnt relieve oneself bad things happen, people do. God doesnt snap his fingers and *poof*, some(a)where in the world another person is murdered. That receiver chose to put himself in that situation. So does God let this happen?In the sense that He allowed the liquidator to exercise free will Yes, He did. Does this mean that we should blame God? No, I dont think so. There is nothing I am more grateful for than my free will. There would not be much of a life without it. In Saint Augustines On Free option of the Will, the idea that God allows bad things to happen is presented in a conversation between himself and Evodius. On rascal 5 line 19 of the text, Augustine states Yet it perplexes the mind how God should not be indirectly creditworthy for these sins, if they come from those very souls that God created and if, moreover, these souls are from God. The entire concept of blaming God for bad things has always been unmanageab le for me to understand, but the book does clarify many points. I int shutting on presenting those points by defining some(prenominal) terms and applying them to the argu manpowert that Saint Augustine uses in order to obtain a sufficient coiffe to the chief. In order to do this, we must assume that God does exist. People often say, I know on that points a God, but I want to understand Is this God good? And if he is good, because why do bad things happen? By asking this question, one might really be asking Does God plane exist? which is completely different. The question of whether or not God exists has nothing to do with peoples suffering, but instead, with creation, revelation, world history, etc. Therefore, for simplicity, we will not venture to answer that question and will assume that God does exist. The question we are addressing is, in essence, requiring us to judge God. In discussing this issue, I have chosen not to address the question of why particular things happ en.Take a physicist, for example. He may be able to tell you why a sky will diminution in a certain place- it has to do with the aerodynamics of the leaf, the force of gravity, and the direction of the velocity however, if you ask him where the leaf will hang up, he mountainnot because it is impossible to quantify the different forces that a make a leaf fall in a particular place. Of course, he can propose several general principles, but conniving exactly where it will land is beyond the realm of his analysis. Its the same idea here.We wont be able to say why proper(postnominal) things are natural event in a specific situation, but we will be able to speak about general principles that can lead us to understand the workings of a good God who lets bad things happen. The Bible tells us God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him (Genesis 127). What does it mean that man was created in Gods image? It factor that human beings are finite and corporal. So how are we created in Gods image? Obviously, the image of God is dealing with the non-physical part of us the soul. We get our drive for righteousness and meaning from the soul which is in the image of God. Just as God has independent choice, so besides does each human being have independent moral choice. The image of God means that we have the efficiency to choose. The baron to choose is what makes us special as a race. Life only set outs meaning(prenominal) because of our ability to choose. Take neck for example. The difference in being programmed to love and the choice to love, is exactly what makes love special. Similarly, if I dont have the choice to do good, but am programmed to do good, then thithers nothing meaningful about it. On the same accord, if I have the ability to do good or evil, then good becomes significant.For a choice to be truly genuine, there must also be consequences. If every time I get in trouble, mom comes to unloosen me out, thats not really a choice . Choice means consequences. Our history-personal or global- is base on decisions do by human beings including the consequences that come from that. Now we understand that image of God means that God created beings who have the ability to make decisions, and those decisions will create consequences that will make this being a co-partner in the exploitation of the world. This has many ramifications as far as why God allows bad things to happen.For free choice to operate, its obvious that evil has to have the possibility of existing. If every time someone chooses to do evil, God is expiry to interfere, then theres no moral choice. If every time the gun is pointed, the turret points backwards, after a few times you get the message. It simply becomes pragmatic not to do evil. If the lives of the righteous were patently perfect(a), that too would destroy the possibility of choice. Pragmatically, wed figure it pays more to be righteous because look at all the good things that come m y way Thats not choice. Thats not becoming God-like.A world where a human being can create himself into a Moses, also carries the possibility of a person creating himself into a Hitler. We have to understand and appreciate that in the Holocaust, it was not God who built the crematoriums, it was the Nazis. It is not God who was massacring Muslims in Bosnia, it was the Serbs. Augustines approach to the free choice of the will assumes that there can be no denying that we have a will. Instead, Augustine defines good will as a will by which we prove to live a good and upright life and to attain unto perfect wisdom which, of course, assumes that it is free.Those who choose evil are ruled by their passion and desire for things of this world. This is futile because they only have, as Augustine says, the love of things which each one can lose against his will. One who chooses to do good ultimately gains everything because there is no business of losing things due to lack of attachment to them. Those who become perfect could lose every material thing and tranquillise gain all precisely because they are trying to attain the perfect, which is wisdom. Wisdom cannot be lost as long as someone has good will. This leads us to the question Why would we choose evil?It is my picture that piece always choose to do good, its just a matter of whether one chooses a lesser good. This occurs when one chooses to allow passions and desires to rule the soul, which tend toward things of this world. While Augustines friend Evodius can study there is a great difference between passion-desire and fear, fear is a part of passion. We fear because we scorn something, which may or may not equate itself to reason. Therefore someone of good will ineluctably seeks to order oneself perfectly with Gods lines of the Gloria Glory to God in the highest, and peace to men of good will (Luke 214).Augustine begins to answer the question why man chooses to do evil by declaring what makes humans di stinct from animals. It is the fact that humans have the capability of reasoning and animals do not. He points out that some things that men possess uniquely as opposed to animals, such as the power to jest and put-on and the love of praise and glory, are of a lower order. As a result, when reason rules the soul, the more perfect reason is made subject to the less perfect desire and passion. In our twenty-four hours, most people do not even realize they should work toward having reason rule their lives.It has been in style for more than one hundred geezerhood that humans must have their desires and passions rule their lives. Those who have reason rule their lives are thought to be rigid because reason assumes that someone can find truth, which many now claim is impossible. One can deal this outlook first hand. It is manifested by people who think they can determine their own faith and even reality. On the flipside, people tend to think theyre at the mercy of the bad things th at happens to them to let off away their need to eliminate their faults.If we have a free will, then we also have the affair to make decisions based on a head-formed conscience and what is good and evil. What determines whether a particular action at law is good does not depend on ones own judgment on whether it feels good or does not hurt anyone. Instead, we have a responsibleness to determine good and evil based on truth and to have it rule ones life, with passion and desire subject to it. When people are ruled by feelings, it necessarily diminishes the dignity of a person. When a soul is not well-ordered, the ability to use ones will freely is diminished, but not completely destroyed.Rather, we have the duty to work to order our souls correctly, no matter how low weve gotten. An interesting fact about Augustine exemplifies mans imperfections and low points. According to an online encyclopedia reference site (Wikipedia. com), Augustine had a mistress for several years forwa rd turning from evil to do good. Not much more was written about this incident, but it did conjure up that Augustine attributed his rise from a life of sin to a great doctor of the Church by means of Gods grace. He believed that through Gods grace, we can choose to become men of good will and live good lives.For me, a good life means that I make a comfortable living as a doctor, I and my family enjoy good health, and then I die peacefully at age 80. Thats a good life. Anything else is bad. In a express sense, thats true. But if we have a soul and there is such a thing as eternity, then that changes the picture entirely. Eighty years in the face of eternity is not such a big deal. Relating this to a major historical event, after being responsible for the torture and deaths of millions of people, could Hitler could really end it all by just swallowing some poison? No.Ultimate justice is found in another dimension. I will stop myself there since the concept of another dimension is a firm other argument. That it is very difficult for us to judge God because we are stuck in time and space. And because our view is so limited, when bad things happen, there are so many possibilities of why its happening that we are incapable of considering them all Is this a challenge in life that was given to me so I could become an example to inspire others? Or is this to get me to fix a wrong Ive done? Or is this due to historical/national forces that are affecting me as an individual?Or is whats happening to me now through a choice that Ive made? Or that Im on my own because Ive distanced myself? The fact that there are so many possibilities makes it easier to come to terms with the question and to be more comfortable realizing that if I had Gods infinite view I would understand. Until that day comes, these theories of mine will have to do. On Free Choice of the Will by Saint Augustine An examine providing insight as to why a good God lets bad things happen as well as why me n choose to do evil. Roya Mohebpour.