Try here
and
here(from the Catholic v Presbyterian thread.)
You said:
It is the "free" portion of the term that has to mean "without any outside influence whatsoever" or it really is nothing more than a definition of "conditioned" will. And, that is precisely my point. Our wills are conditioned, not free.I THINK my response is to say that I think you are moving too fast for me. There's no question that my will is conditioned, one way or another. I guess one way to look at what I'm proposing is that I'm asking "What would a free will be like, if we ever saw one."
Sorry to be so incoherent. It's related to the question of whether "God is able to lie." If you look at it one way, you'd reject the idea of any limitation to God's freedom and say, Yes, He is able to lie.
BUT (here's the nub of the other proposal)
Part of the appeal to me of this approach is the way it handles the "Can God lie" question. And it also deals with the problem of the (hypothetical, not usually experienced in real life) free will which has no constraints at all. Is love of the Good a constraint? If so, is the will free? If not, why would or should it choose the Good?The ability of free will to choose between various things in conformity with the end ['end' as in 'that for the sake of which', man was created with the 'end' of the vision of God] shows the perfection of freedom; but to choose something not ordered to the end, that is, to sin, evinces a defect of freedom. Therefore the angels, who cannot sin, enjoy greater freedom of choice than do we, who can.But to make a LONG, LONG argument short, Pinckaers proposes (following Aquinas) that freedom is "Freedom FOR excellence" before it is freedom FROM anything. I would add that it is because we are sinners and everything we see is affected by that, it is quite understandable that our first thought of freedom would be "freedom from." But as we live, pray, think the Gospel, we see that freedom is really freedom TOWARD.Summa, First Part, question 62, article 8, reply to objection 3
I am not going to the mat on this. It was the "universal" that perked up my ears and the interest of the question which led to all this wordiness.
Such a mannerly response, and really not something to read to fall asleep. Quite the opposite.
However, that said, your response does disclose that the term "free" as you have quoted it must be modified, or rather extended, in order to find an alternate meaning to, "without any outside influence whatsoever". Now my turn to ramble a bit... In heaven, we receive the inheritance of righteousness and will find our natures remade, aligned with Christ, with new wills now completely oriented toward that end to which we were intended. There will be no conflict, no broken flesh hanging on to deceive me and tempt me. This is now a will oriented toward God, and still not "free" in the sense that I used the term. And, I don't want it free.
So, if we are running in circles saying, of course, we are not free here, but let's just call it "free" since we don't feel any constraints, that seems disingenuous.
My suspicions (and I admit evil) are that those wanting to have "free will" be true (that is, without any input), really want something to commend them to God. That is, as one man told me, "At least I chose Christ. The others did not and that is why they should go to hell." If we have no free will (a view I believe supported by the Scriptures), then to be drawn into the Kindgom of Christ has no trace elements of my merit. This is repugnant to a lot of folks that want something to be traceable to the man.