There are different but similar stories all over the world let's look at the story of the Pandora box

In the Bible mythology God made Adam and Eve he instructed both not to eat the forbidden fruit lest they die, Eve ate it and introduced Adam to it and their lives both became miserable

In Greek mythology Zeus wanted to punish mankind so he called the Gods together and told them to create a very beautiful woman, every God and Goddess gave this woman a gift, Goddess of love taught her how to seduce, Goddess of Wisdom taught her how to make sound judgement etc. so they sent her down as a gift to men, Now Zeus himself gave her a box before sending her but he instructed her not to open it (He was intentionally trying to make her curious) Later when the Woman was living among men and she became curious about the box she decided to have a little peek but when she opened it untold evils came out of the box...


Now the main point I'm making here
In the Bible mankind problem is based on our choice but in Greek story it's the will of the Gods, the Zeus made Pandora and knew about her curiosity but in the Bible God made a woman yet claims to be ignorant about her qualities while at the same time claiming to be Omniscient

Do we have free will or is everything destined? this is the question the church never answers

Freewill by choice

danvon:

Do we have free will or is everything destined? this is the question the church never answers

everything isn't destined. There is free will concerning one aspect and another aspect determinism is the case. For instance, the ability of any organism to fly is determined by whether the organism has wings or not. But for the case of choosing between right or wrong there is Freewill

John Locke on Free Will

Every one, I think, finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, continue or put an end to several actions in himself. From the consideration of the extent of this power of the mind over the actions of the man, which everyone finds in himself, arise the ideas of liberty and necessity.

So far as a man has power to think or not to think, to move or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a man free.

Wherever any performance or forbearance are not equally in a man's power; wherever doing or not doing will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there he is not free, though perhaps the action may be voluntary.

So that the idea of liberty is, the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby one choice is preferred to the other: where either of the choice is not in the power of the agent to be produced by him according to his volition, there he is not at liberty; that agent is under necessity.

So that liberty cannot be where there is no thought, no volition, no will; but there may be thought, there may be will, there may be volition, where there is no liberty.
A little consideration of an obvious instance or two may make this clear.

Wherever thought is wholly wanting, or the power to act or forbear according to the direction of thought, there necessity takes place.

This, in an agent capable of volition, when the beginning or continuation of any action is contrary to that preference of his mind, is called compulsion; when the hindering or stopping any action is contrary to his volition, it is called restraint.

Agents that have no thought, no volition at all, are in everything necessary agents.

If this be so, (as I imagine it is,) I leave it to
be considered, whether it may not help to
put an end to that long agitated, and, I think, unreasonable, because unintelligible question, viz. Whether man's will be free or no? 

For if I mistake not, it follows from what I have said, that the question itself is altogether improper; and it is as insignificant to ask whether man's will(volition) be free, as to ask whether his sleep be swift, or his virtue square: liberty being as little applicable to the will, as swiftness of motion is to sleep, or squareness to virtue.

Every one would laugh at the absurdity of such a question as either of these: because
it is obvious that the modifications of motion belong not to sleep, nor the difference of figure to virtue; and when any one well considers it, I think he will as plainly
perceive that liberty, which is but a power, belongs only to agents, and cannot be an attribute or modification of the will(volition), which is also but a power.

Such is the difficulty of explaining and giving clear notions of internal actions by sounds, that I must here warn my reader,that 
ordering, directing, choosing, preferring, &c.,which I have made use of, will not distinctly enough express volition, unless he will reflect on what he himself does when he wills.

For example, preferring, which seems perhaps best to express the act of volition, does it not precisely.
For though a man would prefer flying to walking, yet who can say he ever wills it?

Volition, it is plain, is an act of the mind knowingly exerting that dominion it takes itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or withholding it from, any particular action. And what is the will, but the faculty to do this?

And is that faculty anything more in effect than a power; the power of the mind to determine its thought, to the producing, continuing, or stopping any action, as far
as it depends on us?

For can it be denied that whatever agent
has a power to think on its own actions,
and to prefer their doing or omission either
to other, has that faculty called will? Will,
then, is nothing but such a power.

Liberty, on the other side, is the power a
man has to do or forbear(refrain from)
doing any particular action according as
its doing or forbearance(restraint) has the actual preference in the mind; which is the same thing as to say, according as he
himself wills it.

It is plain then that the will is nothing but one power or ability, and freedom another power or ability - so that, to ask, whether the will has freedom, is to ask whether one power has another power, one ability another ability; a question at first sight too grossly absurd to make a dispute, or need an answer.

For, who is it that does not see that, powers belong only to agents, and are attributes
only of substances, and not of powers themselves?

So that this way of putting the question (viz. whether the will be free) is in effect to ask, whether the will be a substance, an agent, or at least to suppose it, since freedom can properly be attributed to nothing else.

If freedom can with any propriety of speech be applied to power, it may be attributed to the power that is in a man to produce, or forbear producing, motion in parts of his body, by choice or preference; which is that which denominates him free, and is freedom itself.

But if any one should ask, whether freedom were free, he would be suspected not to understand well what he said; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who, knowing that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches, should demand whether riches themselves were rich.

This way of talking, nevertheless, has prevailed, and, as I guess, produced great confusion.

First, then, it is carefully to be remembered, That freedom consists in the dependence of the existence, or not existence of any action, upon our volition of it; and not in the dependence of any action, or its contrary, on our preference.

A man standing on a cliff, is at liberty to
leap twenty yards downwards into the sea, not because he has a power to do the contrary action, which is to leap twenty yards upwards, for that he cannot do; but he is therefore free, because he has a power to leap or not to leap.

But if a greater force than his, either holds him fast, or tumbles him down, he is no longer free in that case; because the doing or forbearance of that particular action is no longer in his power.

He that is a close prisoner in a room twenty feet square, being at the north side of his chamber, is at liberty to walk twenty feet southward, because he can walk or not walk it; but is not, at the same time, at liberty to do the contrary, i. e. to walk twenty feet northward.

In this, then, consists freedom, in our being able to act or not to act, according as we shall choose or will.

danvon:

Do we have free will or is everything destined? this is the question the church never answers

Being creations, we only have Permissions and Allowances which we call Rights, As Given by our Creator!

By these Allowances thereof, we therefore have some freedom and Power to act IN ANY ONE of these Granted Allowances.

Thus, while we have been Allowed to Walk, Run and Jump, we do not have the Allowance to Fly or live under water.

On the Other hand, because we are creations, Our Creator has the Right and Power to Create us in a certain way or/and set us in a particular course of direction, which we of course MUST respond to, because we are creations like our cars and bicycles and phones, hence the phenomenon of Pre-destination!

So a man has both Freewill and Predestination, but freewill is his own natural grant until His Creator changes things!

Ayo13945:
First, then, it is carefully to be remembered, That freedom consists in the dependence of the existence, or not existence of any action, upon our volition of it; and not in the dependence of any action, or its contrary, on our preference.

Aha, Ayo, for this simple question, you are presenting a textbook?

Is it that you are blocking the Op from arriving at his own conclusion having compared opinions?

If the John Locke's explanation seems too tedious, i will post videos on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCGtkDzELAI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KETTtiprINU

paxonel:
everything isn't destined. There is free will concerning one aspect and another aspect determinism is the case. For instance, the ability of any organism to fly is determined by whether the organism has wings or not. But for the case of choosing between right or wrong there is Freewill

Can you explain this further? Let's say your blind, being unable to see you fell into a deep ditch and died was there any freewill involved there

Ayo13945:
If the John Locke's explanation seems too
tedious, i will post videos on the subject.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCGtkDzELAI


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KETTtiprINU

Okay I'll watch this

danvon:

Can you explain this further? Let's say your blind, being unable to see you fell into a deep ditch and died was there any freewill involved there

When you were Blind did your Creator Plant or Placed or House you near a ditch?

No!

So, you must have exercised your freewill to leave the safety of your house where The Creator's Other Laws Take Effect, To Wit - "A man Intends (freely) the Consequences of his Act!"

If you put your hands in fire, you must have intended to get burnt in exercise of your freewill!

danvon:

Can you explain this further? Let's say your blind, being unable to see you fell into a deep ditch and died was there any freewill involved there

He was never predestined to die in the ditch because one may ask, what was the ditch doing there can't something be done to seal it up?
And why will a blind be allowed to walk on his own without a helper was there no family member or anyone?
When you consider all these, you will see that God has given us the free will to prevent accidents of such manner, but because of our negligence they keep happening

Dtruthspeaker:


Aha, Ayo, for this simple question, you are presenting a textbook?

Is it that you are blocking the Op from arriving at his own conclusion having compared opinions?

Ayo13945 is giving more opinions so the Op has to compare before arriving at a conclussion.

Question!
Are you blocking the Op from arriving at his own conclussion?

Like this subject puzzles me to no end.
Personally I feel everything is foreordained with few allowances for error. God has his plan for mankind which the Bible has proven is absolute.
But even in this absolution each individual has a choice to stand with God or with the Devil.
The thing that puzzles me is this, people are different, we aren't made from the same mold so there will definitely always be people who choose the devil, God knows this, you and I know this but why doesn't God change this.

Honestly sometimes I feel this entire life we find ourselves is one gigantic drama or chess game, no matter how much you try to be different or stand out, ultimately you are but a pawn... expendable.

danvon:

Now the main point I'm making here
In the Bible mankind problem is based on our choice but in Greek story it's the will of the Gods, the Zeus made Pandora and knew about her curiosity but in the Bible God made a woman yet claims to be ignorant about her qualities while at the same time claiming to be Omniscient

Do we have free will or is everything destined? this is the question the church never answers

God made a woman and claimed ignorance of her qualities? How so?

Nothing in the Bible suggests that everything is predetermined by God. Instead you are told that He knows all things and set His own plan alongside the plan of men which is pre-known to Him.

KaideeGee:
Like this subject puzzles me to no end.
Personally I feel everything is foreordained with few allowances for error. God has his plan for mankind which the Bible has proven is absolute.
But even in this absolution each individual has a choice to stand with God or with the Devil.
The thing that puzzles me is this, people are different, we aren't made from the same mold so there will definitely always be people who choose the devil, God knows this, you and I know this but why doesn't God change this.

Honestly sometimes I feel this entire life we find ourselves is one gigantic drama or chess game, no matter how much you try to be different or stand out, ultimately you are but a pawn... expendable.

God knows the end of a man from before the beginning of that man does not imply that He ordained the man's end as it will be but simply that He is able to see all that would become of that man.

Been really busy lately let me reply

paxonel:
He was never predestined to die in the ditch because one may ask, what was the ditch doing there can't something be done to seal it up?
And why will a blind be allowed to walk on his own without a helper was there no family member or anyone?
When you consider all these, you will see that God has given us the free will to prevent accidents of such manner, but because of our negligence they keep happening

Okay but why make one person blind and another with great eyesight, your directly making the blind person fully dependent on the other for survival

Ayo13945:
If the John Locke's explanation seems too
tedious, i will post videos on the subject.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCGtkDzELAI


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KETTtiprINU

Interesting video the conclusion he makes here is we have more control over some actions less control over others and he did not mention God at all

Kobojunkiee:
God made a woman and claimed ignorance of her qualities? How so?

Nothing in the Bible suggests that everything is predetermined by God. Instead you are told that He knows all things and set His own plan alongside the plan of men which is pre-known to Him.

God punished Pharoah for not freeing Israelites but it was also God hardening his heart and preventing him from doing so
This is Determinism

danvon:


Okay but why make one person blind and another with great eyesight, your directly making the blind person fully dependent on the other for survival

did he actually make him blind?
I don't think so.

Perhaps, he was born blind doesn't mean he was made blind as there could be artificial causes of foetal disorder such as maternal malnutrition or drug abuse.
Also, note that paturitional or infant blindness isn't hereditary, and even if it is, it isn't proof that God created it so