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by: Joe Bill (c)2/1/2001
Here are some musings on free will and why I feel that it doesn�t make sense.
We all have heard that God is an omniscient being, which is perhaps what we would all want in a higher power. After all, we wouldn�t want to worship a sponge, because the sponge doesn�t have the power to crush our wills, or flood the earth, unless of course you make the sponge omniscient. Nonetheless, there is an idea about God that somehow one can act with complete free will, even though God all ready knows the outcome.
Let�s look at this on a very basic level. Free will is limited by being human in the first place. If you are an alcoholic, you could choose not to drink. It is a viable option. However, your tendency is going to be to get another drink, despite the fact that you know it is bad for you. Why is that? Because psychologically you are dependent on the alcohol. The same thing can be said for women who seek abusive relationships. Very few of us set out to find a relationship in which we will be abused. Women who end up there often don�t know why, or how they got into the mess they are in, even though subconsciously they were actively seeking a dysfunctional relationship at the beginning. What does this mean? It means that to a degree, we are all slaves to our psychology. We could argue that everyone has the power to change themselves, but many of us don�t have the insight or the willingness to truly introspect our feelings or illogical reactions to certain events. Hence, we stay rooted in the same behaviors, all the while wondering why or how we got where we are. Furthermore, each choice we make is going to be determined by our past experience with whatever stimulus it is that caused us to have to make a choice. Let�s say that we need to take a trip, and to get there, we need to fly in a plane. When we were younger, we got air sick on a plane. Chances are, our minds would more readily lead us to some sort of alternate means of transportation. Merely by having a negative experience, our mind rules out �plane ride� as a possibility. So, we begin to see the beginnings of a limited free will.
We already know that psychology limits us, but lets address the direct issue of God knowing what we are going to do before we do it. Here we find a bit of dichotomy in religion. You have absolute free will to make whatever choices you desire, but all the while, God already knows what you are going to do. So, from the day you are born, God all ready knows what path you are going to follow, even when presented with choices. If you throw in that God made you, and that biology, to a large degree, determines who we are, then one might effectively be able to say that God made you for a particular purpose to run a particular path. Now, how can we truly make free choices, if we know that firstly, our biology is going to have a bearing on our psychology, which in turn limits us, which in turn God made? We can�t. Not within the confines of Christianity. We could take this argument further and ask ourselves why some end up in hell as a result of their limited free will. We could also probably say that in the beginning of your life, God already knows whether you are going to heaven, or hell. Isn�t that a nice thought?
In short, free will and Christian doctrine are at odds. However, if you are reading this, bear in mind that though you thought you made a choice of your own accord, if you are Christian, God already knew it�
Joe Bill
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