Determinism, Free Will, and Predestination


I'm being interviewed for an atheist/agnostic podcast or YouTube cast whatever it's called, tomorrow, 5 pm PST.
He wanted to debate me on predestination and free will a few months ago.
I said a debate wouldn't make sense.
My reason for it is faith.
His reason for rejecting free will is "science".
I only agreed if this was a discussion, not a debate.
So anyway, it's happening.
I'll write my basic thesis today.
Probably won't be official Catholic teaching, but not outside of the defined dogmas, which are basically there is predestination, and there is free will. Not much else has been defined.

Interview on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/shanemysterio/videos

Determinism, Free Will, and Predestination
Laurence Gonzaga
  1. Free will, as I understand it, is the ability to choose between two or more options with each of the options being equally probable.
  2. Apart from theological assumptions or conclusions, I believe there is sufficient reason to conclude that our actions are determined by either internal intrinsic impulses that move us to act, or external forces which force us to act in the most probabilistic way among all possible ways to act in that moment. Therefore, free will seems unlikely, apart from any other intellectual or psychological commitments.
  3. The convinced theist, who is also a convinced monotheist, Christian, Catholic, of the orthodox type, accepts the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that there are two things which are certain from tradition and scripture, that man is predestined, and he also possesses a free will.
  4. Before grace, man is a slave to sin, a child of Satan, due to Original Sin, and subject to his passions which always leads to personal sin.
  5. Because of actual grace, the grace to act, one is enabled to do good and avoid evil. This grace is given to all men for various reasons by God.
  6. Before all time, some people were predestined by God infallibility to salvation. They are therefore the elect, the chosen, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.
  7. The ones that are not predestined will not be saved, and are called the reprobate.
  8. The following are my own speculations:
    • Combining my beliefs apart from what I know from religion, every little human activity is predetermined by what we understand from physics and psychology.
    • An analogy would be the vectors and final resting positions of every billiard ball when you hit the cue ball at a certain vector. The laws of physics will make the final outcome certain.
    • God intends a final outcome. Therefore he has set up the system, from start to finish, to accomplish his intended outcome.
    • Imagine if there was a possibility that man’s freedom could in any way act contrary to God's planned motions for history. That would seem absurd.
    • All good comes from God, including good acts, like faith, good works, choosing to believe in God.
    • Conclusion: Freedom, from a Catholic perspective, is the capacity to do the good, and so free will manifests in those moments of actual grace. But the efficacious grace causes the man to actually do the good especially the good which contributes or moves towards their progression through justification and sanctification, and ultimately their glorification.

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