Q&A: God's Free Choice
God's Free Choice
Question
We define free choice as:
a. an action that does not result from causes that determine the action in advance,
b. an action that is not random,
but rather an action that stems from awareness and deliberation.
Seemingly, with regard to any dilemma there is only one perfect judgment,
or at least there is always a more justified judgment compared to other considerations.
God, whose judgment is always perfect, will necessarily be fixed on the most correct consideration, so it follows that He does not have free choice, but is compelled always to make the correct judgment in any given situation.
Of course, it also follows from this that a person whose judgment is a certain way, with all his limitations, is compelled toward a particular action that his limited judgment will lead him to……
Answer
The fact that He always does the right thing does not mean that He has no choice. He always chooses the good. True, there are those who argue that the nature of the good is to do good—that is, that He has no choice, but rather His nature dictates that He do good. Maybe that is correct, and that doesn't bother me either.
Discussion on Answer
More precisely,
can there be different lines of deliberation for a given person?
Yes. That is the meaning of choice. You wrote the sum total of knowledge, abilities, and desires, but desires are a matter of choice.
I seem to remember there is a column here about what deliberation is, and its relation to free choice.
And with regard to a person who ultimately chooses after deliberation—if deliberation is the sum total of the intellectual capacities, desires, knowledge, and so on and so on that a given person has,
can God, who is "the perfect psychologist," know what the person will choose?