Fr. Seán ÓLaoire

And there are kind of indications, if you make good choices, here are the results.

If you make selfish choices, here are the results, that you're totally free to do whatever you want.

And so I differentiate then between freedom and free will.

That freedom is the ability to do as pleases God, and free will is the ability to do as pleases the ego.

And so they're very, very, very different.

So for me, the only free person is the person who's choosing the good, who's choosing compassion and love on a regular basis.

Otherwise, we're enthralled with proclivities of various kinds because of the space which we inhabit.

And so, in some senses, everything that emerges is acceptable, and therefore it's of God, including decisions to murder, or to rape, or to kill, or to child traffic.

That's what you want to experiment with.

See where it takes you.

And does it bring happiness to the individual doing it?

Does it bring happiness to the community that lost a child?

Does it bring happiness to the culture or whatever?

What are the results of it?

And that is basically the ultimate form of research where the outcomes and the fruit demonstrate the quality of the tree.

But there's no intervention whatsoever.

God does not say, oh, no, no, you can't do that.

I'm not allowing that.

That's a bridge too far.

but that in some senses we're stuck in the illusion of time.