What is the nature of free will? Are
we all on this earth to simply dance to the beat of another's drum or
do we make real choices? People have been pondering this question
for probably as long as they've pondered at all and I can see why.
We don't like to think that our lives our controlled by someone else
and if we see that none of our choices matter than it leads to a
depressing fatalism. So can we come to any meaningful understanding
of this problem? I think we can.
First off let's look at things from
the naturalistic perspective, frankly because it's much simpler. If
we are all just animals, meat machines, and more specifically if we
are the end result of automatic process working as they have to
ultimately culminating in the formation of man, then there is no
choice. As Hawking pointed out we cannot avoid determinism if we
come at life from this angle. There can be no transcendence in a
world that evolved. If we are born of nothing but chemical reactions
and the laws of physics and if nothing else exists to interact with
this matter than nothing can ever happen but what is programmed into
that material (so to speak). Every “choice” that you make is
really just what your particular set of chemicals and structures has
to do when encountering that situation. In this view all of
existence is one big calculation, a series of equations where A + B
will always equal C. Your personality, your beliefs, your choice of
a job or a spouse, these things are all just illusions of sentience
and the reality is that we are all just robots; DNA machines that run
on a very complicated set of rules. Depressing isn't it?
You cannot cut the strings
The problem with this ideology is that
we do see glimpses of the transcendent in our lives. We are aware of
what we are in a metaphysical, existential sense. This is where
Christianity comes in. You see, in the Bible, we are shown to be
more than just matter. Made from the dust of the earth God breathed
life into us (Genesis 2:7) and made us a living thing. This is
important because we see here two huge differences from how He made
animals. First we were made 'from' something, unlike animals and the
earth which were simply popped into existence by God's own power, we
were formed from the “dust of the earth.” I'm sure there are
ramifications and reasons for that but it's beyond my abilities to
find them. The second and really more important bit is that our life
was “breathed” into us by God directly. To me this connects us
to God's Word which is described as “God breathed” (2 Timothy
3:16), and which is also described as being “alive” (Hebrews
4:12). Also we were made in the “image of God,” (Genesis 1:26)
which obviously doesn't mean that we look like Him since God is
spirit and has no set physical form (other than the humanity taken
unto the Son, ie. Jesus). All of this points to a creation that is
more than just the stuff it's made of, we are both physical and
spiritual beings and this allows us the ability to look outside
ourselves and to rise -just a bit- above our material.
We are more than the sum of our parts.
It gets a bit more complicated from
this point. You see, all of the previous stuff is quite clearly
shown in the Bible but we also see that God has total control over
His creation (1 Chronicles 29:11-12, Psalm 115:3, Isaiah 46:9-10,
etc.). Many people have a hard time reconciling true free will with
a being that can simply make you do whatever He pleases. Now I'm not
going to get super deep here simply because there isn't time but I've
done a lot of thinking on this over the years and I'll simply run you
through my current conclusions. The short answer is that no you
don't have free will. You do however have free choice, let me define
that. Free will is the ability to do whatever you want, to make
decisions and plan your life as you see fit. Honestly I don't see
that as an option Biblicaly, we do seem to make choices and
decisions but the ultimate outcome of those choices is far beyond our
control. We can choose to obey or rebel against God but in the end
we get heaven or hell and there is nothing we can do at that point to
change our destination. I think what we have is what I call “Free
Choice.” By that I mean that God has laid out His world and has
given us options and we have the freedom to choose from those
options. Obey or rebel, love this person or this other person or no
one, this job or that job, school or no school, and on and on and on.
These choices come to us and some are better than others and some
are obviously where God would have us go but He doesn't necessarily
force us down these more proper roads. Look at Jonah, God actually
TOLD him what to do but he chose instead to run away. This is one
way in which our choices can matter and how we can still be
responsible for our sins. We chose, in a very real sense, to do that
evil. We are always presented with options and we may not like them
but they are there.
When we speak of the big questions of
salvation and sanctification, God is just doing what He wants to
ultimately, and we can either choose to obey or to rebel. I think
that when we move beyond the ultimate questions we have a lot of give
and quite a bit of 'wiggle room.' God has plans and purposes but He
made them with our personalities and preferences in mind, using us to
tell His story so that we are truly involved in the telling; actors
not puppets. We may say the wrong line or miss a cue every once and
a while but we are right there on the stage. We have to be more than
matter for anything we do to matter and our soul gives us that bit of
transcendence.
Are you an actual person and author or this account fake and you just copy and paste?
ReplyDeleteI can assure you I am a real person and I write all my own material. I may draw inspiration from others but who among us doesn't?
DeleteThe pictures I include some times are usually just found online mind you, I was referring to the text of my posts :P
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