free will in mentally and emotionally retarded ppl?

I must agree they are very special ppl with souls of pure, unadulterated white. I worked with mentally disabled children, many of whom were living in a nursing home with little, if any contact with family. To see their smiles light up when they saw me was an awe inspiring moment and left me feeling complete and happy for days. I knew I had made a difference in someone's day, just as they had made a difference in mine, but I still find myself wondering if they have the mental capacity to differentiate between right and wrong well enough to truly have free will.

sunshinecup, having worked with them as well as I stated earlier I too have seen them display these emotions. But I think many of these emotions are based on personality and instinct rather than free will. Your response makes me wonder if they were taught the Bible(assuming they can comprehend the discussions and lessons could they then make a conscious choice? Maybe it is just the same as with children we believe are younger than the age of responsible decision making( at the moment, I forget the word we use in church).

k, um, i thought this was a philosophical discussion not a religious one, but it actually is a philosophical discussion.. anyway lol. 1.if god is omnipotent, he is all knowing. therefore, he knew our will before we existed. therefor, god created our will, not us. that is why free will cannot co-exist with an omnipotent god. SO, either free will does not exist, or the omnipotent god does not. 2.do you believe god controls our destiny? do you believe people have the power to change destiny? 3.i thought that this was not about god, but since you seem interested in my philosophical view, i will say it. you open the question with: do people with mental disabilities (emotional or physical) have free will? so, what are mental disabilities? it is any negative abnormality that occurs in the brain. so, if they do NOT have free will, does that meen people with "positive mental abnormalities" have free will? lets step back and define free will: the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies. so, according to the premise that people with negative mental abnormalities have no free will, we conclude that the disability is the "external agent". however, if this is true, the "positive abnormality" could also be considered as an external agent, so, people with positive abnormalities also have no free will. if this is true, anyone with ANY external agent that constrains free choice has no free will. so basically, if mentally disabled people have no free will, nobody does. however, this opens up the question of: does "free will" come from the mind? if it does, that means that the disabled people may be missing that part of their brains. however, if this is true, the idea of an omnipotent god becomes irrelevant, as he becomes non-existent. on the other hand, if it does NOT come from the mind, and it is something of pure "emotion" - which comes from the mind too, but it is needed in order for someone to NOT be in a vegetative state, although it is not proven whether or not people in that state have emotion - it could open the idea that if they don't have it, i don't either. i hope that clarifies where im coming from.. and yea, if you believe in free will, god is not omnipotent. thanks

I'm still not real sure where you are coming from. However, I will say how I believe God sees our life as and before he reated us. Our life is like a timeline, God sees that timeline and knows where we are going and what choices we are going to make, but he has given us those choices, hence free will. We and the universe are God's creations, if he chose to he could make us do whatever he wanted, but what he chose to do instead was allow us the freedom to choose ourselves. Hence we have free will and an omnipotent God, one who knows and can do anything.

This discussion is in religion because it is God who gives us free will to choose to follow him or not. He does not and will not ever make us choose his path. BTW, considering I don't believe you understood the concept of this question I do not understand what you mean. Would you please elaborate?