I am beginning to think that the last two generations have no idea what free will exactly is.
The society and cultures of the West want to blame parents, circumstances of life, financial recessions, even holidays for people making bad decisions.
I am making my way through Fr, Chad Ripperger's major book, Introduction to the Science of Mental Health.
Two of Fr. Ripperger's shattering ideas, that is surprising for modern people, which are so obviously true one must assent, is that modern psychology fails because most psychologists ignore the soul.
Without addressing the soul, a person is only being helped less than half-way. The soul forms the body and informs the mind.
Without helping the soul be healthy, that is, in grace and not in sin, the psychologist will fail in helping a person out of mental illness.
The second main point in the book is that much mental illness is caused by sin.
That Fr. Ripperger writes about free will in context of who humans are given this ability to choose good and evil by the fact that they are human.
The GenXers and Millennials have a problem. They want to continually talk away sin by blaming pyschological reasons, the lack of proper nurturing, and a huge set of circumstance as causing sin.
Choice causes sin.
Many Christians today live in the victim mode. All evil has happened to them. They cannot possibly choose evil.
But, they have and they do.
I would recommend Father Ripperger's book to anyone in any ministry under the age of 70. The denial of sin in Western culture has obviously caused the decadence of civilizations, and some, if not most, mental illness.
Free will can be burdened, but not taken away. Free will can be bent, but not destroyed, except in some extraordinary situations.
Those who have had their wills destroyed can regain mental health and a healthy will, through counseling and prayer.
But to deny that humans have free will is heresy. Both secularism, which denies the existence of the sacred and the spiritual, (also called materialism, and the opposite, Jansenism, deny free will.
Those who keep making excuses for themselves and others, denying that they have the power to turn away from temptation, may face hell.
Does a person caught in habitual mortal sin need help? Yes, but to deny the part of the will in those choices only makes the person more depressed and even despondent.
I hate this emphasis on the victim mentality, which denies personal responsibility for sin.
to be continued...