Do We Really Have Free Will

[Gaea]

I Have Come Across A Dificult Situation With This Topic.

Questions

1. Do We Really Have Free Will. If Satan Has Been Allowed To Temp Our Thoughts And Feelings, Then Our Choices That Lead Us To Sin Can Not Truley Be Ours. Our Thoughts Are Allowed To Be Corrupted By Temptation So How Can We Really Have Free Will.

2. How Can We Really be Repsoncible For Our Sins If Satan Played A Big Part In Them. Are They Not Satans Sins More Than Our Own.

3. We Know What Right From Wrong, But Even When We Know Whats Right From Wrong, We Cant Always Know Our Choices Where Wrong Until We Realise We Have Sinned. Thus How Will We All Know What Is A Sin If We Have Not Seen A Sin Acted Out By Someone Else. How Can We Realise What One Of The Ten Commanments Really Means If We Have Not Seen It Being Abused Or Abused It Through Sin.

4. How Can We Really Have Free Will If Our Thoughts Can Be Manipulated By Satan.

5. I Know That Our Parents Can Tell Us Why A Commandment Really Means, But For Example, We Shall Not Steal. What Is Stealing, Taking Things That Do Not Belong To Us And With Permission. That Will Give The Commandment Justice, But We Still Get Tempted To Commit Sin. Why Is The Devil Allowed To Temp Us To Sin, That Our Thoughts Are Not Completely Ours, We Can Not Always Realise If Our Thoughts Are Our Own. We Only Act On How We Feel. I Guess The Bible Can Describe To us What These Temptasions Are.

Do We Really Have Free Will If Our Thoughts And Feelings Can Be Manipulated.

Maybe We Do Have Free Will. Because While Writing This I have Found The Answer.

We Have To Reconise Our Choices Before we Act On Them, Even If Our Thoughts Are Not Alwats Ours, We Have The Ability To Know Whether They Are Good Or Bad. Wether They Will Cause Harm or Disrespect To Others Or Ourselves.

Do We Have Free Will If Our Thoughts Can Be Manipulated Tempation. It May Still Be A Tough Question To Answer, As Im Not Completly Sure Of Mine.

[pushka]

I think we have the free will to choose whether to do that which somebody may manipulate us into doing, if we feel deep down that the action is a wrong action yet we still choose to do it, that is exercising our free will in spite of being manipulated one way or another...we could also refuse to do the action that we know is wrong even tho somebody is manipulating us to do it...that is exercising our free will too...

When we meet a manipulative person, and that person influences us, our thoughts still belong to us, ultimately, they do not belong to that other person...however, if we have some sort of mental retardation, we could be said to have had diminished responsibility to the wrong action that we have taken...

[Elgama]

we are only manipulated if we let it happen our actions are our responsibility nobody elses.

-Charley

[WillowTheWhisp]

We have free will. Satan can tempt us but he cannot manipulate us. People use that as a cop-out. We can choose the right or the wrong option. I don't think we have to commit a sin or see others commit a sin to know that it is wrong. I have no difficulty knowing the stealing and murder are wrong. They just are. I don't have to have been the victim of theft to not want to steal from others.

[Elgama]

I personally feel Satan gets way too much credit its not him sinning or not repenting its me.

-Charley

[Latter Days Guy]

Like someone else has said, it's us that sin so it's upto us to repent.

Also could you please not capitalise the first letter of each word as it makes it really hard to read, makes my eyes go wonky:huh:

[WANDERER]

Interesting question: If you believe there are

apparently two choices: good or evil in the battle.

If we do evil we are being manipulated by Satan.

If we do good we are freely choosing to do God's will.

Extremely limited free will I guess...not really. THe term agency makes more sense.

Welcome to the puppet show.

Your thoughts?

[lilered]

GAEA:

There are other parts to this equation or process of temptation, if you will. We are placed on this earth to be tested and/or tempted. While true we have our Free Agency to choose whether or not we will submit to Satans temptations, we have been given the Gift of the Holy Ghost, to help us. We can communicate with our Father in Heaven for help (Prayer), we have the Gospel (knowledge), we have teachers to teach and train us. We have loving parents and others who love use and teach us. We learn by expierence and when we fail, God provides a way back by repentenance, which if sincere, teaches us wrong from right.

So if we choose to avail our selves of the help, then we can make good choices, if we choose not to then we will make bad ones. No one is perfect, so all of us make bad choices at times, but we can choose to repent and start over. :)

[utcowboy]

Repentance is a wonderful thing. Free agency is also a wonderful thing. But they both rely on responsibility for ones self!! If you are going to blame others for your actions, then there is no one that can help you. You have in you, as stated by others above, the ability to make choices based on knowledge, faith, and wisdom. You have to be ready to take responsibility for your actions based on your knowledge, faith and wisdom.

[Gaea]

Thank you for giving your input.

Please refer to the question.

Do We Really Have Total Free Will, If Our Thoughts Have Been The Thoughts And Tempataions Of The Devil.

Reason For This Question. If We Have Free Will, Then We Should Have Total Control Of Every Thought In Our Head. We Should Not That Exterior Influences Of Our Thoughts. Because If Those Thoughts We Think Dont Really Belong To Us, Then How Can We Have The Abilility Of Free Agency.

Every Thought We Have In Our Brain Should Be Ours To Act On. Thats Free Agency, But It Evil Has Been Able To Make Us Believe That What We Think Is Our Thoughts Then Do We Really Have Free Agency To Really Control All Our Thoughts.

Thank You

[SanctitasDeo]

Thank you for giving your input.

Please refer to the question.

Do We Really Have Total Free Will, If Our Thoughts Have Been The Thoughts And Tempataions Of The Devil.

Reason For This Question. If We Have Free Will, Then We Should Have Total Control Of Every Thought In Our Head. We Should Not That Exterior Influences Of Our Thoughts. Because If Those Thoughts We Think Dont Really Belong To Us, Then How Can We Have The Abilility Of Free Agency.

Every Thought We Have In Our Brain Should Be Ours To Act On. Thats Free Agency, But It Evil Has Been Able To Make Us Believe That What We Think Is Our Thoughts Then Do We Really Have Free Agency To Really Control All Our Thoughts.

Thank You

Reply With Quote

I believe that we do have the agency to control our thoughts, but as we choose to think thoughts that we shouldn't, we give the devil greater power over them to the point where he can try to control them to.

Recently, I have found myself more able to control my thoughts. I attribute this to repentance, and the power of God in my life. Also, unless you give Satan total control over your life, there is no way that all of your thoughts will be from him. The trick is to be able to recognize what is from the Devil, and to stay away from those thoughts and things to which they lead.

Look at this from the flipside. If God has the power to put thoughts into our head, when we do good things or repent, is it because of our agency, or is it because we are being controlled?

God will never take our agency, but Satan will try. However, Satan can only take it if we give it to him, and God will help us retain our agency.

[pushka]

Every experience, every day of our lives, influences us in some way or other...that doesn't mean that we are not responsible for our actions because we have been influenced by something or other...

We can choose to ignore negative influences in our lives, and so choose to take positive actions...

Our thoughts are always our own, irregardless of any influences, good or bad, in our lives..therefore we are always responsible for our actions except for in the example I stated in my first reply.

[Gaea]

Your Answer Nearly Fits With The Question.

We Have Habbits, Those Habbits We Have Are Sometime Difficult To Give up On. But Because Those bad Habbits Exist In Or Past, The Devil Trys To Remind Us Of Them By Manipulating Our Memories Of Them. Thus Temptation To Sin Again Or To follow The Thought Patterns Of Those Bad Habbits Are Played On. Satan Trys to temp Us With Our Experiences And The Things We Have Learned To Be Bad.

We Do Have Free Will. But We Dont Have Control Of Forgiven Sins. We Become Clean Thrugh Repentance And The Sins Was Away. In That Sense Those Trangressions are Removed And Satan Pays The Price For Them.

But we Still Have The Dorment Memories Of Those Experiences And Thus Satan Uses Them Agaist Us.

So We Have Free Agency, As you Say, But SomeHow It Still Doesnt make Sense Why God Allows Satan To Temp Us, So That We Lose Some Of Our Free Will To Control Our Own Memories And Thoghts. Every Single Thought Should Be Ours To Act On, Tempation Takes Away Total Free Agency. When We Make Choices.

Shouldnt All The Choices We Make, Wether Wrong Or Right, Be Influenced On Our Feelings And Thoughts And Not The Temptations Of Satan In Order to Know That We Are Free To Choose For Ourselves Without Tempation.

If We Know Whats right From Wrong Then Shouldnt We Just Make Our own Choices Without The Temptations Of Satan Influencing Them. If We Are All Created In Heaven Before We Are Born, Then God Already Knows If We Are Worthy.

While Typing This Once Again I Think I Know. In Heaven we Dont Really Know What It Means to Be Free Until We Have Experienced Not Being Free. We Have Many Trails And Thus We Can Know Whats Right From Wrong And We Dont Really Have Free Will Until We Live This Life In Order to Know whats right From Wrong.

But How Does God learn Whats right From Wrong, God Must Have Been One Of Us Once Upon A Time. Maybe.

[rameumptom]

Moral agency (as Pres Packer likes to call it) is available to us, precisely because Satan tempts us. 2 Nephi 2 teaches that without opposition, there is no choice, there is no existence.

Until Satan arrived in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had only one set of rules and nothing to compare it with. It was necessary for a choice to be introduced in the Garden, otherwise Adam and Eve would not have had the ability to make such a choice.

Remember that Satan's temptations are only a part of the equation. All people are born with the Light of Christ (Moroni 7), which teaches us to do good and follow Christ. So we're equally encouraged by both the light and darkness.

Do addictions make the decisions more difficult? Of course. We can, through our choices, or the choices of others, lose some of our decision-making ability. But I think God will take that into consideration when he does the final judgment. The child that is raised on drugs by his parents has less to be judged over than the adult who decides to forsake his spiritual training and delve into the world of drugs.

[lilered]

Thank you for giving your input.

Please refer to the question.

Do We Really Have Total Free Will, If Our Thoughts Have Been The Thoughts And Tempataions Of The Devil. "There must be opposition in all things"

Reason For This Question. If We Have Free Will, Then We Should Have Total Control Of Every Thought In Our Head. We Should Not That Exterior Influences Of Our Thoughts. Because If Those Thoughts We Think Dont Really Belong To Us, Then How Can We Have The Abilility Of Free Agency.We do have control, however the gospel plan allows for Satan to tempt us. Once he does that, we have the freedom to choose. Whether it by a physicial, mental, or other temptation. We do have a choice in our thoughts. If we have bad thoughts, we can choose to think good ones, which act as a replacement. We can control our behavior in what we watch or read or listen to, which then gives us control over Satans opportunites for temptation.

Every Thought We Have In Our Brain Should Be Ours To Act On. Thats Free Agency, But It Evil Has Been Able To Make Us Believe That What We Think Is Our Thoughts Then Do We Really Have Free Agency To Really Control All Our Thoughts. Every thought in our brain can be acted upon. To continue to think about it, research it, quote it, etc. however we also have the power to dismiss it and substitute another good thought in its place.

The point I think the point that may be missed is the fact we do have control, whether or not we choose to use it to change our thoughts be it good or bad is up to us. Of course the exception is someone who perhaps has a mental disorder.