April 10, 2025

#12146 What’s the Catholic Understanding of Free Will, and How Can We Defend It? - Jimmy Akin

55 minutes

Does free will really exist, and how does Catholicism explain it? We explore the Church’s teaching on human freedom, how to defend it in conversations, and also tackle questions about burial and cremation, suffering, Jesus’ childhood, and even pseudoarchaeology.

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Questions Covered:

01:21 – Supposing a cannibal eats a Christian, and then the cannibal gets converted, who gets which bits in the resurrection?

12:37 – Is the requirement to receive communion to not be conscious of mortal sin or grave sin? I ask because the official canon law says grave sin, but grave sins can be venial in the case of addiction

14:13 – Could you clarify the Catholic teachings on burial, specifically concerning what is/isn’t permitted, and what is preferred. I’ve been told that cremation isn’t forbidden, but scattering ashes is, due to our desire to respect the body.

20:49 – Can you explain the problem with Islam: Is the word of Allah separate from Allah?

22:41 – What was Jesus’ life like in childhood and adolescence?

24:41 – What is the catholic understanding of free will, and how can we argue for it?

37:00 – What are cardinals and how did that position become established?

41:45 – I know that God brings a greater good from evil He allows and that He helps save our brothers and sisters through OUR efforts but are those the only answers to why God would allow tens of millions of people to starve under Mao and Stalin? Or why so many people, including children, are trafficked, and satanically ritually abused? I mean the scale of human pain is mind-blowing. Is the realization of our impotence in the face of evil and our need to surrender to God for help the point?

48:13 – Recently a real Archaeologist Flint Dibble debated Graham Hancock a pseudo archaeologist. Are you still planning on doing an episode on pseudo archaeology? Would you consider interviewing someone like him for it? There seems to be a war brewing between mainstream archaeology and a few camps of pseudo archaeology online. I have to admit, I was in one of these camps until I watched a good volume of your material.

50:21 – I would like to know if it is true that Our Lady of Fatima told Lucia, that Francesco would pass and his soul would be in purgatory until the end of time. It is hard to believe that a child would have such horrible sins that would keep him there for so long.

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