Assuming that Jesus Christ is the son of God… if He came to Earth again and showed himself to be the son of God, would that contradict the notion of free will?
He wouldn’t force anybody to believe using any spiritual trickery, but would be able to do things that were blatently obvious, like feed everybody in the world at once, or make the disabled able (Although perhaps he could take normal people in his arms and let them feel God’s love directly).
If everyone in the world can tell that this person is obviously 100% the son of God, would that basically take away free will? After all, if you knew that God existed and was good, would anybody really doubt his existence still? If by knowing his existence to be 100% true, would that mean you don’t have free will in regards to your belief in God?
Obviously people would still have free will in regards to their choices they make in everyday life, but what about in regards to their belief in the existence or non-existence of God?
Well the second coming isn’t supposed to be like that. Have to be tricked by the antichrist before he shows up and all that.
Even if he did come down and perform a magic show it wouldn’t contradict free will you’d still be able to claim it was all a hoax or mass hysteria what have you. Unless he took away your ability to doubt or question you can always find loopholes.
Considering the number of people who believe the world is flat, that the moon landings were a hoax and that Friends is a really really good show, I would think some people wouldn’t believe he was the son of God.
We all have the choice to believe “x” or not to believe “x,” regardless of how obvious you think the evidence is. You still have to go through a logical (or illogical) processing of the facts you’ve witnessed, and draw your own conclusions.
Even in your “blatantly obvious” example, many people (including myself) would surmise that perhaps this was the work of an alien.
Does fire contradict “free will”? It burns whether or not we believe it, so won’t that violate our “free will” to not believe in fire? Does gravity contradict “free will”? The original question is meaningless. “Free will” has nothing at all to do with whether or not one is willing to believe upon the basis of tradition and testimony instead of requiring direct and concrete evidence. If the presence of concrete evidence automatically destroyed free will, then every single physical object destroys free will.
