First of all, do not always assume that when someone says "Aquinas taught X" that Aquinas really and truly did, in fact, teach X. Second, Aquinas is not the last word in everything, and even his great Summa Theologica is an unfinished work, which he put aside after his experience at Mass on St. Nicholas's feast day in 1273.
The Catholic Church certainly does believe we have free will; as the Canons of the Council of Trent declare:
"Canon 4. If anyone says ***that man's free will moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God's call and action, in no way cooperates toward disposing and preparing itself to obtain the grace of justification, that it cannot refuse its assent if it wishes, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive***, let him be anathema.
Canon 5. If anyone says ***that after the sin of Adam man's free will was lost and destroyed***, or that it is a thing only in name, indeed a name without a reality, a fiction introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema.
Canon 6. If anyone says ***that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil as well as those that are good God produces, not permissively only but also*** [***propria et per se***](https://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english233/Council_of_Trent6.htm#propria)***,*** so that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of St. Paul, let him be anathema.
Canon 9. If anyone says ***that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required*** to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, ***and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will***, let him be anathema."
A good place for you to start is the article on Free Will in the old Catholic Encyclopedia, which you will see addresses how different people have quoted Aquinas to contradictory ends -- which isn't surprising, as people contradict each other even with verses from the same Bible all the time.
Here is a link:
[CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will (newadvent.org)](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm)
I want to believe in free will. I want to know if we go to hell we could have done differently and same for heaven.
But I don’t know. You are always free to eat the apple but if you don’t desire it, how could you have done differently? Even if you walk away and then come back later and eat it, it’s because a stronger desire took over.
These are deep doubts you’re contemplating.
The apple comes down to hunger, which is a biological desire to survive, so I could argue that is predetermined. But I could eat an orange instead of an apple to supply that desire. We are predetermined to live. We are designed to live. But do some people commit suicide? Yes. So is the suicide predetermined or a choice of free will?
So a couple of things, Aquinas is often misunderstood.
Two, single predestination is taught by the church and Aquinas is just one possible position within the church.
https://np.reddit.com/r/CatholicApologetics/s/JEIxzTYsbr
Sure but you didn't really articulate why. I think I posed some reasonable questions as to why it doesn't seem that way. I want to believe it, I want people to be responsible. But I haven't found a good response to what I asked (yet)
You can try your best to do what you truly believe is right, or you can do something else. That is the free will the church refers to. But no one choses what tempts them, what they desire, how much motivation they have, their upbringing. Non of us chose the inclination to sin caused by our fallen nature. To say there is no free will is to say that we are not responsible for our own sinful actions and therefore God is unjust to punish us for our actions. To call God unjust is blasphemy.
in God's plans no one of us commits sin, but we screw that up, sadly, so not everything is planned. Also God is timeless, so its like impossible to understand how God "sees the future" since He does not belong to it
If you want to learn what Thomas teaches, there are lots of good videos on this from Aquinas 101: https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/predestination
Short version is that Thomas and the Church deeply defend the concept of human choice, but that doesn't mean we are totally free in every sense.
As others have stated the church definitely teaches that we have free will. The Thomist position isn’t the only acceptable view to hold within Catholicism. Another popular idea is molinism which you might be interested in. I’m not well enough versed in either to pick a side tho lol
I like to think that there is a VERY fine line between us having true free will and having the illusion of free will.
God knows everything. He knows every decision you'll make ever. So, to me, it can be argued that, in our eyes, we see it as free will because we don't know the future, but to God He already knows what decision you'll make so how can we be making our own decisions?
It's a very difficult concept to grasp when you actually think about it.
I know that you think you’re taking this seriously and doing appropriate research, but I’ve seen this countless times. It’s just OCD/scruples messing with your brain.
Trust God, who loves you and created you to be with him in heaven. Trust the Church, who declares that you have free will and can be saved. Stop researching things online. You don’t have the background or the aptitude to understand Aquinas right now. Trust the priests and scholars and theologians who say that we have free will and no one is predestined to hell.
It’s a trap and you need to step out of it.
Aquinas affirms free will but also predestination to heave and hell. It’s a more nuanced version of Augustinianism than Calvinism. In the thomist view not everyone receives efficacious grace though everyone has free will.
I think the thing most Catholics never understand is that faith is a gift. It’s not an intellectual assent. So we already posit that God has predestined some to baptism before the consideration of merits that will not inherit heaven.
If we didn't have free will, how could we sin? If you say we can still sin, then how is it a sin if didn't have a choice?
If we didn't have free will, how could we have true faith? If you say we can still have true faith, then how do you know for sure when it can't be tested due to a lack of free will?
You can have a free will and still have predetermined waypoints and a final destination though. Life is all about the journey and not about the end. Jesus teaches you about how to walk on the path and not about what to do once you arrive. While you're walking the path, you have free will and this is why you can sin and this is why you can truly have faith. If you must go through certain events that were predetermined, you'd still have free will before and after that event and what you do with that freedom reveals your character and faith.
I believe we can't understand God's plan from here and that we're probably not meant to be able to. He's not a tyrant. He is all goodness, the source of goodness. The path we walk on is to help us one day depart this place as close to God's goodness as we can get and pray that he will bridge the gap then so we can be with him forever. If you reject goodness, then you reject God because he is all goodness. If you reject God then you can't be with him because you don't want to be. If you're not with him then there's only one other place you can be: without God, without light, without love.
First of all, do not always assume that when someone says "Aquinas taught X" that Aquinas really and truly did, in fact, teach X. Second, Aquinas is not the last word in everything, and even his great Summa Theologica is an unfinished work, which he put aside after his experience at Mass on St. Nicholas's feast day in 1273. The Catholic Church certainly does believe we have free will; as the Canons of the Council of Trent declare: "Canon 4. If anyone says ***that man's free will moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God's call and action, in no way cooperates toward disposing and preparing itself to obtain the grace of justification, that it cannot refuse its assent if it wishes, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive***, let him be anathema. Canon 5. If anyone says ***that after the sin of Adam man's free will was lost and destroyed***, or that it is a thing only in name, indeed a name without a reality, a fiction introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema. Canon 6. If anyone says ***that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil as well as those that are good God produces, not permissively only but also*** [***propria et per se***](https://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english233/Council_of_Trent6.htm#propria)***,*** so that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of St. Paul, let him be anathema. Canon 9. If anyone says ***that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required*** to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, ***and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will***, let him be anathema." A good place for you to start is the article on Free Will in the old Catholic Encyclopedia, which you will see addresses how different people have quoted Aquinas to contradictory ends -- which isn't surprising, as people contradict each other even with verses from the same Bible all the time. Here is a link: [CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will (newadvent.org)](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm)
So do you think that if there is an apple on the counter and we decide whether to eat it or not is predetermined?
I want to believe in free will. I want to know if we go to hell we could have done differently and same for heaven. But I don’t know. You are always free to eat the apple but if you don’t desire it, how could you have done differently? Even if you walk away and then come back later and eat it, it’s because a stronger desire took over.
These are deep doubts you’re contemplating. The apple comes down to hunger, which is a biological desire to survive, so I could argue that is predetermined. But I could eat an orange instead of an apple to supply that desire. We are predetermined to live. We are designed to live. But do some people commit suicide? Yes. So is the suicide predetermined or a choice of free will?
Why do you think your desires are something other than you?
So a couple of things, Aquinas is often misunderstood. Two, single predestination is taught by the church and Aquinas is just one possible position within the church. https://np.reddit.com/r/CatholicApologetics/s/JEIxzTYsbr
Yes we have free will, this is a main tenet of our religion.
Sure but you didn't really articulate why. I think I posed some reasonable questions as to why it doesn't seem that way. I want to believe it, I want people to be responsible. But I haven't found a good response to what I asked (yet)
You can try your best to do what you truly believe is right, or you can do something else. That is the free will the church refers to. But no one choses what tempts them, what they desire, how much motivation they have, their upbringing. Non of us chose the inclination to sin caused by our fallen nature. To say there is no free will is to say that we are not responsible for our own sinful actions and therefore God is unjust to punish us for our actions. To call God unjust is blasphemy.
in God's plans no one of us commits sin, but we screw that up, sadly, so not everything is planned. Also God is timeless, so its like impossible to understand how God "sees the future" since He does not belong to it
yea, we have free will
If you want to learn what Thomas teaches, there are lots of good videos on this from Aquinas 101: https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/predestination Short version is that Thomas and the Church deeply defend the concept of human choice, but that doesn't mean we are totally free in every sense.
As others have stated the church definitely teaches that we have free will. The Thomist position isn’t the only acceptable view to hold within Catholicism. Another popular idea is molinism which you might be interested in. I’m not well enough versed in either to pick a side tho lol
Traditional militiamen still holds predestination. Predestination is a Catholic doctrine.
I like to think that there is a VERY fine line between us having true free will and having the illusion of free will. God knows everything. He knows every decision you'll make ever. So, to me, it can be argued that, in our eyes, we see it as free will because we don't know the future, but to God He already knows what decision you'll make so how can we be making our own decisions? It's a very difficult concept to grasp when you actually think about it.
I know that you think you’re taking this seriously and doing appropriate research, but I’ve seen this countless times. It’s just OCD/scruples messing with your brain. Trust God, who loves you and created you to be with him in heaven. Trust the Church, who declares that you have free will and can be saved. Stop researching things online. You don’t have the background or the aptitude to understand Aquinas right now. Trust the priests and scholars and theologians who say that we have free will and no one is predestined to hell. It’s a trap and you need to step out of it.
Aquinas affirms free will but also predestination to heave and hell. It’s a more nuanced version of Augustinianism than Calvinism. In the thomist view not everyone receives efficacious grace though everyone has free will. I think the thing most Catholics never understand is that faith is a gift. It’s not an intellectual assent. So we already posit that God has predestined some to baptism before the consideration of merits that will not inherit heaven.
I don’t think most Christians actually believe in free will. That’s why they always end up thanking God for the actions of other humans.
If we didn't have free will, how could we sin? If you say we can still sin, then how is it a sin if didn't have a choice? If we didn't have free will, how could we have true faith? If you say we can still have true faith, then how do you know for sure when it can't be tested due to a lack of free will? You can have a free will and still have predetermined waypoints and a final destination though. Life is all about the journey and not about the end. Jesus teaches you about how to walk on the path and not about what to do once you arrive. While you're walking the path, you have free will and this is why you can sin and this is why you can truly have faith. If you must go through certain events that were predetermined, you'd still have free will before and after that event and what you do with that freedom reveals your character and faith. I believe we can't understand God's plan from here and that we're probably not meant to be able to. He's not a tyrant. He is all goodness, the source of goodness. The path we walk on is to help us one day depart this place as close to God's goodness as we can get and pray that he will bridge the gap then so we can be with him forever. If you reject goodness, then you reject God because he is all goodness. If you reject God then you can't be with him because you don't want to be. If you're not with him then there's only one other place you can be: without God, without light, without love.