Posted by Eliza on: 12.21.2006 /
Free will. I keep reading about it whenever “the problem of suffering” comes up. (That problem being, “If God is beneficent, omnipotent, and/or omniscient, why is there suffering?”) It has come up briefly twice in my class, which didn’t meet last week due to the big windstorm we had. I thought I would get more out of bringing it up here for discussion than trying to probe it further in class, so here are my thoughts on free will. I’m very interested in your thoughts, comments, and explanations about this topic. (Speaking of suffering, 1.1 million “customers” lost power in the windstorm; over 100,000 are still without power a week later; ~100 people, mostly immigrants, have been treated for carbon monoxide poisoning at local hospitals; and 14 people have died from various storm-related events. Still, we are far, far better off than many places in the world.)
I’ve learned that “free will” is a common explanation among Christian apologists (in my reading in books and online, and in my class), with the corollary that if we didn’t have free will in order to choose to love God, we would be a race of robots. I haven’t found this explanation compelling, but until recently I hadn’t really thought about it too much. I’ve recently started reading Letters From a Skeptic, which Stephan suggested to me at least seven times, I think, in our conversations on the Discussion Board. (Thanks for the nudges!)
It’s not a big surprise to me that this book also brings up “free will” in response to the problem of suffering. Christian apologist Gregory Boyd puts it this way in one of his letters back to his “skeptic” father (p. 23 in the book):
It seems to me…that if God is going to give free wills to His creatures, He has to allow for the possibility of them misusing that freedom, even if this means hurting others. To be significantly free is to be morally responsible, and to be morally responsible means being morally responsible to each other. What is the freedom to love or not love unless it is freedom to enrich or harm another? God structured things this way because the alternative would be to have a race of robots who can’t genuinely love - but that’s hardly worth creating, is it?
Now, we should probably define “free will” if we’re going to talk about it. I’m actually not quite sure how Christians define it, except that it seems to mean we can choose how to act and are not controlled on puppet strings from above (or by remote control as robots, etc). I’m also not quite sure how I define it. But I think I can put some limits around it:
We are, of course, constrained to those acts which we can physically carry out, and for which we have the appropriate knowledge. (I can’t flap my wings and fly, or design a space station from scratch, just because I have the free will to decide that I want to.)
Practically speaking, we are also constrained by the culture in which we live, its laws, and our values. (I have a revulsion to the idea of eating insects, or dogs, or primates, though I theoretically could start munching on them if I decided to, based on free will; as I understand it, there are places on earth where these things are eaten and it’s considered fairly normal.)
We are also substantially constrained in the expression of our free will by previous decisions we have made, unless we decide to abandon prior committments. In signing a car loan or mortgage, getting married, or having (or adopting) a child, we take the first step into a multi-year, or lifelong, committment and then have less “free will” in many other decisions because of each one of those committments. (And these do add up by the time you’re in your mid-40’s, let me assure you younger folks!)
I think we are also substantially constrained in the expression of our free will by factors completely outside of our control - luck, divine providence, however you want to describe it. These include which family we were born into, which part of the world, which era; which fortunes and misfortunes outside of human control struck that family and that part of the world in that era. The choices available to a child born with HIV in Africa are markedly different from those available to a child born healthy to a middle class family in the United States. I suppose someone could say that they both have the “free will” to love, and to love God, but then I have to ask: is “free will” is limited to the expression of love?
These factors influence our capacity to choose, to love…and also to inflict suffering on others, which was a big part of the point behind the idea of “free will.” Yet for reasons I’ve already listed above, I think most people are not in a position to inflict significant suffering. Sure, we commit some thoughtless acts here and there…and most of us are not doing “our part” to relieve the suffering of mankind, sure…but imo I don’t see a majority of the world’s suffering coming down to volitional decisions that people could easily change, especially given other constraints above. To me, most suffering still remains unexplained by the “free will” theory. (Examples: Indian Ocean tsunami, 12/26/2004. Malaria, tuberculosis, sickle cell disease, cancer.) For a person like Hitler or Saddam Hussein to inflict suffering on a large scale probably also takes other factors - a big helping of sociopathy & self-centeredness and a real lack of empathy, to start with. The idea that free will explains why suffering exists starts looking like it means that the decision for most people is “should I cause a bunch of people to suffer, or should I love God?” and that seems too simplistic. (But I could definitely be oversimplifying here!)
Would everyone here agree that God and humans are not on an equal footing? (I’m thinking that’s a given, but could be wrong. I use that assumption in the next part of this writeup.)
When I think about earthly models of “unequal” love relationships, I think first of parents and children. When young, the children don’t have much if any “free will” in their relationship with their parents. (Its limited to: “Would you like oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, dear? Do you want to have your hair in pigtails or a ponytail?” That kind of thing.) The parents have significant power over the children, but even when parents cause suffering, children show remarkably tenacity in loving those parents, on whom they are dependent.
And sure, children mature and must start separating from their parents and making decisions on their own, hopefully moving to a more mature loving relationship with their parents after whatever rebellion they’ve expressed in adolescence. But do we humans move through an “adolescence” into an “adulthood” in our relationship with God, the parent? I would have thought it impossible to consider that we could ever “mature” to become anything like a peer to God. So, I guess I see humans as necessarily “child-like” with respect to God, if he/she/it exists, and see a child-parent relationship as one in which one party does not have the ability to conceive of, much less express, a lot of “free will.” The relationship is too crucial, and the power distribution too unequal.
(Let me know if your child, ages 1 to 10, reminds you of a robot in their relatively powerless position while you, their parent, limit their expression of “free will” for their own safety and to meet your duties as a parent. I’d like to hear what that’s like; it hasn’t been my experience!)
Another analogy, to which some may object, is the pet-master relationship. Again, the master has the upper hand & can express love, “tough love”, structured discipline, random discipline, and cruelty, in any combination. Here, the pet (a dog or cat, for example) may be able to leave the relationship and strike out into the unknown on its own, but my understanding is that even pets which are sorely mistreated often stay loyal to their masters and express what we would interpret as unconditional love. (Or, at least, a keen awareness of the person who provides their food.) I suppose I can see the “robot” analogy better here, where a pet may have learned exactly what it’s supposed to do in specific situations to reduce the suffering (punishments, etc) it experiences. Now, an abused child or spouse can also learn exactly what he or she is supposed to do in certain situations to reduce the suffering, but is that “robotic”? Or is that the considered response of someone who has had the opportunity to learn what works best in given situations, and chooses to act in accord with what they’ve learned?
A final analogy might be arranged marriages in other cultures. Not all result in love, but some do; yet these are situations in which neither party (or, at least not the woman) has the “free will” to leave. While conforming to expectations of a spouse and of society in entering and living in an arranged marriage might constrain a person significantly, it’s still hard for me to see that as “robotic.” And: Is love which arises in that situation less valid than love which arises in a marriage freely chosen by the partners?
So, I’m having trouble with the idea that God (who is necessarily so superior and vast compared with us) must give us “free will” (of a degree and type that we can commit or allow significant suffering) so that humans can love him, and have it mean something. Does the love of a young child count for so little? Are we in a substantially different, more mature, relationship with God than a young child would be with a parent? (If God exists, etc etc.) And how about that sword of Damocles, the possibility of eternal damnation…doesn’t the threat of eternal punishment, with God holding the highest cards, mute the idea of “free will” in the decision to love or not to love God, at least a little bit? (Sorry for the mixed metaphors!)
Gregory Boyd continues on page 23 of Letters From a Skeptic:
So why doesn’t God intervene every time someone is going to misuse his freedom and hurt another person? The answer, I believe, is found in the nature of freedom itself. A freedom which was prevented from being exercised whenever it was going to be misused simply wouldn’t be freedom.
Here, the idea of freedom in society comes to mind. We like to say that the United States is “a free country”, yet we clearly have rules (laws). The freedoms laid out in the Constitution are protected by the Constitution (except at times when Congress tries to do an end run around them, as in the USA PATRIOT Act and in the Military Commisions Act of 2006). When those freedoms are misused, or when someone thinks they are being misused, we do have recourse - we have the judicial system, capped by the Supreme Court. We do have laws, we do have a policing system and a judicial system, we have fines and jail terms depending on how bad the “misuse” of the “freedom” was. So I’m left unclear on why the freedoms allotted to humans by God are thought to be so fragile that those freedoms might collapse if there were any discipline imposed on us, by our Creator and ultimate judge, at the time of our improper choices or actions (rather than later, and potentially for eternity).
So, what do you think? Is free will the mechanism by which God allows us to choose to love him, with the necessary drawback that we can also choose to allow or commit bad acts which cause suffering? And how do you make sense of those aspects of this which I sit here and fuss over? Thanks for your thoughts on this!
Comment by: Helen
1This actually concerns me about the way Christianity is taught and practised. I think it encourages people to regress/stay childish in the wrong sorts of ways.
In my talk at the conference “Almost an atheist” I said one of the decisions I made as I moved away from conservative Christianity was to move from (inappropriately) childish to (appropriately) childlike. This is how I distinguished the two in that talk:
I think it’s a problem in some Christian circles that people are encouraged to have an over-dependence on authority figures, idealizing them and blaming themselves when anything seems to go wrong. It’s natural for children to go through that stage but we hope they will all grow out of it. Christian communities shouldn’t be encouraging people to return to/stay at that stage mentally/emotionally, but in my observation, they sometimes do. Which means their adult free will is being inappropriately compromised.
Comment by: JG
2Eliza,
Many thanks for this excellent post. Plenty to think about.
Just one brief comment for the moment. For me, there are many factors involved in the whole issue of suffering - and God generally for that matter. For me, the principle of free will is a very important factor but as you rightly point out, on its own, it doesn’t stack up.
I also agree with you that it is not “all or nothing” - it is not either complete free will with no restraints or being robots.
From my memory of my children in their early years, whilst we sought to put in place “restraints for their safety” there was no doubting the existence of their own free will or their frequent exercise of it!
Comment by: JG
3Three more thoughts.
1) My starting position is that nothing makes sense to me. If I believe in God then I am faced with difficult questions. If I believe life came out by pure chance I am faced with difficult questions. There is no option I can select which enables me to avoid difficult questions which I can’t altogether answer other than the decision simply not to think about it which is not an option I’m willing to take up. For me, it is much harder to believe life cam about by pure chance than to believe there is some sort of creator.
So for me, the real issue is over the nature of such a creator rather than whether or not there is one. Rarely in debate is the option of there being a God but not a God we would want to know considered. Rather suggestions that if God exists, he must have characteristics that we don’t like are used as evidence against his existence. I have always been struck by the story of the benefactor in David Copperfield (Charles Dickens). Pip thought it was Miss Havisham and that she intended him to marry Estelle. Turned out that she only had malice in mind and that his real benefactor was an old crook he had helped as a child.
I haven’t heard or thought out any complete answers and suspect none exist that we can fully understand. Instead, I believe i see glimpses of things, principles, clues if you like, which point the way to the answer whilst not being the answer in themselves. Free will is one such principle.
2) Another “glimpse” is that I see people in various situations and have to say, I don’t see much of a link between their situation and their state of “happiness” but if there is one I would say it is (at least to some degree) in reverse to what people would normally expect. So for example, the more money someone has, the more miserable they seem to be. Couple’s who have children with disabilities - it seems to me that often, such children are more treasured, more special, more valued because of their disability. In his programme, Stephen Fry shared very honestly about his condition but also indicated that he and many like him would NOT want to be without their condition. BUT in general I would say it is not so much what hand you get dealt that matters as what you do with it. I wouldn’t wish difficulties on anyone. But there does seem to be some truth in the principle that the bigger the challenge, the bigger the rewards. I had an elderly relative who talked about how they saved up for things when they were young and the pleasure they experienced when they finally acquired the long awaited item. In these days of easy credit and immediate availablity I believe we have lost something
3) Using again the analogy of parent and child (something I can relate to) do I let my child out into a world knowing that he or she may suffer harm as a result? Or do I seek to protect them from harm but with the result that they don’t experience life? When I was a child, children generally had far more freedom than they do these days. In the UK, playgrounds are being closed because of the risk of injury - Council’s do not want to be sued. And crazy things - like cutting down conker trees to protect Councils from being sued if a child tried to climb them to get conkers. Eliza’s point is that it seems that if there is a God, he allows too much freedom. Are there not reasonable steps he could take that would avoid many of the dreadful things that do happen in the world without unduly restricting our freedom? I think that is a good question. But if that is the question, I find it interesting that our struggle is over God giving us too much freedom rather than restricting us too much.
Comment by: Stephan
4Ok, so I’m a little pushy at times. It seems to have worked. Just to be clear, I don’t necessarily expect the book to change your mind, just help you understand the theist viewpoint a little better.
Free will is indeed a tough one - one of those topics that I would be suspect of anyone who says they fully understand it.
It helps me to think of it in terms of a maturing child. As they learn, they are given more freedom and responsibility. With added freedom, however, comes more ability to do harm.
While God did not choose to limit our free will, I believe He gave us the ability to create checks on it - namely our conscience, our ability to create laws and customs. I agree that at times it appears to be allowing the inmates to run the asylum, but I’m not sure how else it could work.
I guess that’s what it boils down to for me - if not free will, what else? How else could God have set it up in a way where we could choose whether or not to choose Him?
Comment by: Jim Henderson
5Eliza
I am too intellectually lazy to attempt to interact thoughtfully with your questions. I will leave that up to Helen, JG, Stephan and the others with great minds teh frequent this space.
For me it all comes down to an intentional choice. After taking into consideration the various scenarios you raise (and which any one who cares about this issue has to notice) one either makes sense of it by saying God is somehow part of it all or not part of it at all.
I have chosen to make sense of it with the former and because of that choice I tend to “see” things that “reinforce” my viewpoint. That doesnt make my viewpoint objectively true but it does make it true enough for me that I find hope in it. The objective part will have to be discovered later.
So yes- I do find the correlation between free will and God (and all of the brilliant examples you gave including the one about arranged marriages which I happen to think is a great idea but then I’m almost 60 and have 3 kids in their thirties yet to be married) to be sufficient enough for me to make sense out of suffering (which I think God has almost nothing to do with - it is the result of a world in chaos and of broken human beings trying to survive and too often resorting to selfishness - which is most often the result of the fact that men run the world(now that should draw some heat :-)
Comment by: Stephan
6Jim, your comments only upset me in that you did not close your parentheses. I hate that.
))
There.
Comment by: Rich Schmidt
7Eliza,
Greg Boyd is a good one to look to if you’re wanting answers about suffering, freedom, and how God interacts with the world. I recommend that you dig into some of his other books where he gets into the topic a bit more fully.
For example, the missing piece beyond free will is the fact of our responsibility for creation. In Genesis, God gives the humans responsibility (sometimes translated as dominion or authority) for the rest of creation. We screwed things up, and the whole world was screwed up as a result. This is where those “natural” disasters come in.
But that’s for another time. I like the analogies you’re working with as you grapple with the idea of free will. The only problem is that you’re not taking them far enough.
Let’s take the parent-child relationship. Sure, a parent puts constraints on a child’s expression of free will all the time, and the parent disciplines & trains that child to use their free will to make good choices. God does the same with us, I believe.
But to imagine a world without free will, you have to take it further. Imagine that you, as a parent, can go beyond merely restraining the child externally or training them through physical, verbal, and emotional feedback. Imagine you have the ability to reach into your young child’s brain and flip a switch that prevents them from ever wanting to disobey you. They can’t even conceive of disobeying you. They will always say “Yes” to you and never “No.” They will be the perfect child.
Is that still really a child? They have lost all freedom of will. It makes me think of The Stepford Wives (I’ve only seen the recent movie remake & have never read the book), in which real women are being replaced by perfect wives who always do what their husbands want. The only problem is that they’re no longer human.
That’s an argument for the need for free will to exist, I think. But maybe you’re asking something different. Does God have to allow us to express our free will, when we desire things that are bad for us or others? Should God prevent us from acting on decisions that have negative impacts? If he did, I don’t see how that leads to anything remotely like a loving relationship. The closest analogy I can come up with would be prison.
Comment by: Siamang
8I think we’re talking about various things that the “free will” question is designed to answer.
As far as I know, “free-will” is used as a get out of theodicy jail free card primarily in these three departments:
Why can man cause evil?
Why does nature cause suffering?
Why is God undetectable or nearly so?
The free-will issue seems to only squarely smack at the first one. Okay, we have free will to do right or wrong. Gotcha.
But then the question, why does the Tsunami or babys born with birth defects that are destined to scream in pain for 20 hours then die… How do we reconcile that with a loving God? “Ummmmm…..free will?” doesn’t begin to answer that question.
The best counter-argument I’ve heard from a theist when it comes to non-man-caused suffering was this:
God wants us to care for others. Living in a world where danger is sometimes around without malice, where people can get harmed for no good reason at all, just the luck of the dice, that’s God’s plan. Why? Because He wants us to care for others.
I don’t find it particularly compelling. I wouldn’t use it to console the parents of the above mentioned dead child. I wouldn’t put it on a recruitment poster for believers in God. But there it is, the best argument I’ve heard in that department.
The third argument is divine hiddenness, and I don’t get it at all. Apparantly God hides as much as possible so that we have “free will” as to whether to believe in him.
This I don’t get. I know George Bush exists, but I still have “free will” to oppose him.
It really seems like an excuse. An invention after the fact. As far as I know, nobody in the Bible ever says “Yes, we know it’s almost impossible to find any evidence at all for God, but He wants you to have free will.” Did Jesus’ diciples have no free will because they knew he could do miracles? Do people in heaven have no free will? Are they robots?
But here’s the real killer of the free-will argument:
DO we even have free will? Before we start using it as a defense of the problem of evil, shouldn’t we confirm that the thing even exists?
Otherwise, aren’t we just using one speculative, possibly imaginary thing to argue in favor of the existence of another speculative possibly imaginary thing?
Comment by: Eliza
9Siamang wrote:
Easier said than done, wouldn’t you say? How would you design an experiement to determine this? (And don’t we still have to define it first?)
Here’s a question: did Paul have free will to believe or not believe? He was kind of hit upside the head by his experience on the road to Damascus, yet since then people have had to make do with experiences with less punch, less persuasion - more need for faith and for deciding how to weigh all that’s unclear, that JG talked about.
Comment by: Stephan
10Eliza, I’m sorry, but I have to recommend another book. It worked once. Boyd wrote a book called “Is God to Blame”. It gets more into free will and some of the issues Siamang brought up.
I’ll warn you in advance that Boyd is a little left of center in some of his ideas, so his ideas might not be in line with what you hear in your class or what most evangelicals espouse. His theology has gotten him into trouble a few times, but that’s part of the reason I like him so much.
Comment by: Eliza
11Stephan, I might put this book recommendation on the back burner for now - Mike C has suggested several of NT Wright’s books, several times, so that’s my next Christian reading assignment!
In “Letters”, the father brings up some objections to conservative ideas, and Gregory Boyd counters interpretations that seem broader and more nuanced…introducing them in a way that makes them seem like his personal interpretations. Others may share his ideas, and he may not have been the first person to come up with them, but I was interested that it seems to be through this sort of “crafting” that he comes up with explanations that satisfy his father’s concerns and eventually convinces him to accept Christ. I thought the father’s questions were good, and the son’s answers were good, but the son’s answers would have prompted me to ask more questions about his assumptions, etc. The father doesn’t do that; he pretty readily accepts the son’s explanations.
Stephan, could you explain, what exactly do you mean when you say “choose Him”? My analogies were about loving God, not about accepting His existence - so maybe my analogies were about the wrong thing. In parent-child relationships, the existence of the parent is not in question. “Choosing”, to me, suggests that one accepts the existence of the thing, and is deciding whether or not to select it. But “free will” to “choose God” doesn’t then get around the problem of certain people (ahem) having access to the same evidence as others, yet not finding that evidence convincing as to God’s existence. That’s a different problem, isn’t it? I’ve heard people say that we nay-sayers are just denying the evidence, or choosing not to accept the evidence, but I feel like I’ve read and thought alot about it all and that for me it would be intellectually dishonest to see what I see, think what I think, and yet “decide” of my own “free will” that I believe in the God of the Bible. (If I could even accomplish deciding to believe something that I don’t currently believe, without new evidence or a compelling new experience.) Again, that’s me describing my personal experience of all this…
Comment by: Stephan
12Eliza, my response to Letters was similar - if I were a skeptic I would have followed up with more questions rather than just accepting the answers. I had the same response to The Case for Christ. If you already believe, the explanations make sense, but for a non-believer I think they lacked depth.
I guess by “choose Him” I meant “choose to follow Him”, which is probably about the same as loving God.
To make my question a little more pointed, if you were God and were creating a race of people, how would you do it? Would you be happy with automatons that would serve you without thinking? Would you choose to reveal yourself in such a way that no one could deny you? Would you reveal yourself to some and not others? Would you leave clues around and let people figure it out for themselves? Would you crush any opposition or allow some rebellion?
I’m not even saying there is a right answer, and I’m honestly not sure A) how I would do it or, 2) how God has actually done it. I just that think that, when pondering why God did things they way he did (according to theists) it’s useful to discuss what options He may have had.
Comment by: Rich Schmidt
13Side note: Free will has never served as a “get out of theodicy free card” for me. I’m in a Wesleyan tradition (Church of the Nazarene), so this idea of free will is built into our theology. It comes up right from the start as part of how God created us, because it all boils down to love. And you can’t make somebody love you. Neither can God.
It seems to me that it’s a nonsensical question to ask, “Couldn’t God have created a world in which everyone just automatically loved him & nobody rejected him?” It’d be like asking if he couldn’t make a world in which coin flips always turned up heads. Or the age-old, “Could God create a rock so heavy even he couldn’t lift it?” The terms of the question don’t allow for a real answer. Coin flips aren’t random if they always turn up heads. The rock can’t be that heavy if God is infinitely strong. And it isn’t love if it doesn’t involve choice (free will).
The capacity to love includes the capacity to reject. We rejected God. And that rejection has had cosmic consequences.
Comment by: Seren
14Reading this i’ve thought of another analogy, based in part on Ivan’s question to Alyosha in Dostoevsky’s “Brother’s Karamatzov.”
Imagine you’re a camp co-ordinator who organises weekend hikes for kids. you’re good at your job and you aim with every camp to give the kids a fulfilling, challenging, affirming experience. one day a genie jumps out of your beer bottle and says,
“I can give you the key to a perfect weekend hike. You will be able to give the kids a brilliant weekend, all of them will have the chance find inner strengths, make life-long friends, and feel motivated to become the best they can be in their lives because of the wonderful experiences they have on this camp. The only caveat is that one child will get lost, break his leg, and die alone after three days in pain.”
so, would you do it? 50 kids get a perfect weekend. one kid suffers.
in this little story thing you, the camp co-ordinator, are analogous to god.
a week or so ago a teenager who was hiking in the blue mountains near sydney did get lost. he died alone, no comfort. if an omniscient god made this world then it knew that a kid getting lost in the bush and dying alone was a possibility.
i don’t think i’d do it. the camp, i mean. i don’t think i’d put a bunch of humans under my control in a situation where immense suffering was a possibility. and yet that seems to be what god is being defended for doing here. maybe “defended” is the wrong turn of phrase.
i don’t know.
this is not definitive for me. because, OTOH, i don’t see how it is possible for me to assert that, “THIS should not happen,” without there being some transcendent ground from which to assess what is.
if you’ve read this far, thanks.
Comment by: Rich Schmidt
15That’s why I continually come back to Genesis 1-3. (Not a bad place to start, if you ask me.) God creates us, gives us responsibility for the world, gives us a whole range of possibilities, with only one option off-limits… and that’s what we go for. Sure, our disobedience was a possibility, and I’m sure God knew that. But should we blame God for creating a world in which we could make bad choices & suffer the consequences?
I don’t think we can honestly imagine a world in which we don’t have free will.
Comment by: Helen
16Thanks for your comment, Seren. I agree with you - I also have a problem with the argument that it’s fine to set up a scenario in which some people will greatly suffer as long as some greatly benefit. William Lane Craig at least acknowledged the problem when he wrote something like “Maybe of all possible worlds this is the one with the greatest number of people benefitting and the least number suffering.”
But I still wonder, is it better to create that world than not create it, which would mean no-one suffered?
Comment by: Stephan
17Helen, I think by your logic no one would ever leave the house. Any time you take a family vacation there is a chance that someone will hate it, or get injured, or perhaps even die. Does this mean you don’t even risk it? It seems like you are holding God to a standard (take no risks, reap no benefits) that you are not willing to place on yourself.
Comment by: Seren
18Stephan: yes, that’s true. i am taking a risk every time i cross the road. i am taking a huge risk every time i strap a child into the back of my car and go for a drive.
if you accept that god is somehow in the same position as me, then that is really going to change your theology. you don’t end up with an omni-omni-omni god. if god “takes risks,” then that’s a different sort of god to the one i was critiquing in my post.
you would probably be closer to where i vaguely hang in theological terms - god who is a process. or even jung’s god who learns from its creation.
Comment by: Stephan
19Suprisingly, I’m ok with that.
Comment by: Rich Schmidt
20I land in between the omni-omni-omni god and the process god. Neither one really fits with the story of Scripture. (Well, if by “god who is a process” you mean something like what the process theology folks describe.)
I keep coming back to (1) the stories of Scripture and (2) the Openness of God guys and how they tease those stories out into a description of how it all hangs together. (Greg Boyd is one of those Openness guys.) The story of the Bible is the story of a God who risks.
Comment by: Lisa W.
21I’m joining Jim H. in the intellectually lazy camp with a couple s’mores over the campfire. For me it’s just what I believe because I’m comfortable with it. For me it’s all just a spiritual bet.( I know, I know Pascal’s wager et all.)
But, seriously, the idea of God creating us with ‘free will’ gives me the posture to see God as empathetic, personal, caring and invested.
Comment by: Sam
22So, is there free will? It seems like there would be a split. The Original Post presented the problem. We have freedom in some “choice” and then we are bound or constrained in others. Doesn’t the idea of Freedom of Will mean that we can do what we want when we want without regard? Or is it Freedom Plus responsibility, or extenuating circumstance? Well if it is Freedom Plus, then it is not Freedom at all and a Bound, Constraint. If it is then, Freedom Plus, which it seems like the author would affirm? We have freedom, in some things, which might not be freedom at all because we are bound to make certain choices based on other factors.
So , from what I have concluded through the thoughts gathered here is that you MUST stand for the complete Freedom of the Human Will, or Freedom Plus, which I would not call freedom at all but the Bondage of the Will. Which means that Our Wills are bound by all the factors that surround us, and are made by us, and are in Us and Make us Up. Therefore Nothing that we do is according to our Freewill, and we really cannot mention it because it is non-existent. When we talk about the Human will, we should speak of it as a Bound Will. We can then say that the only Un-Bound, Freewill, is God’s. We might even say that the Name of God is “FreeWill” since he would be, theoretically, the only “thing”(is that the right word?) that can pick and choose without bound what it wants. I will make a world and a People, there were no factors on play in that, were there? Other than the desire of God? If there were let me know.
Something interesting that happens when we say that we have a Bound will, especially according to the suffering of the world, is what? Can anyone come up with it?
Comment by: Eliza
23I nominate manhealthcenter’s post for the “non sequitur of the month” award….
Comment by: Helen
24Eliza I deleted it - I’m sure it was spam. I’m closing comments on this post since it seems to have turned into a spam magnet.