Thoughts on Free Will

I doubt this will be too deep (and probably tongue in cheek), or even too connected. I just was thinking today about some of the typical objections to Reformed Theology and some of the not so usual things I would want to say about them.

Obviously, the reformers never said that we didn’t have “free will” in the sense people assume. They said we always do what is consistent with our nature and, with Scripture, said that because of that there was no way we would chose God without an act of God (regeneration precedes faith).

That said, I think some of the most common objections would be things like “well, if we didn’t have free will then we wouldn’t truly be loving God.” and “If we didn’t have free will, then we couldn’t be held accountable/punished for our actions.” Essentially, if we didn’t have free will, we’d just be robots.

The most obvious question to ask to those sorts of things would be “why?” or “how do you know?”. I think all we can really draw from would be our own experience. We think “well, I were forced to love someone, I wouldn’t really love them.” Now, I’m thinking we don’t really know that, because it’s never happened, but it’s a fairly good assumption, so far as it goes. The issue is that this is not a relationship between people, it’s between creature and Creator. It’s a different relationship entirely. Do you suppose an infant has much of a free will for the first few years? Does it really chose to love its parents? How do you know? Would not that difference (parent age to infant age) be VASTLY more different when comparing us to God?

Let’s talk robots. What can we relate to in everyday experience that we could possibly compare this accusation to? Obviously we have some robots in existence, but most of us probably have never seen one. So I’m thinking more like computers, since everyone who reads this has seen at least one. The parts in a computer don’t have free will, right? So when they break, given the argument above, we shouldn’t actually blame them. We shouldn’t say things like “my computer broke. it needs to be fixed.” But what else could we say? Perhaps we’d have to say something like “there’s a possibility that might be above 50% that something happened to this computer to make it function at less than optimal capacity.” Seems rather silly, doesn’t it?

Another assumption that I think this comes from is that we have an inbuilt distrust of ultimate authority. Think of all the dictators we’ve seen in the history of the world. The idea of a benevolent dictator is quite hard to grasp, since there never has been one. But that’s just the problem; just because there has never been one, we automatically assume that God must not have absolute power/sovereignty over us. Interesting assumption isn’t it? The idea just makes us recoil. I think this assumption is also what lies at the heart of some atheist arguments, but that’s another discussion. However, what if we grant that it is possible?

What if, as all Christians are ok with saying, that God knows everything about us, created us, and knows what would be best for us? What if what would be best for us, was for us to not have free will? I’m not sure how you can argue non-circularly against such an idea. At our core, we really really don’t want God to have control over our lives. We say that we do, so long as He makes all our wants come true. You hear this line of thinking all the time “well, just try it and if it works out, then you know it’s what God wanted.” Really? If we get what we want, then clearly it’s what God wanted for us? We essentially want God at a desk with a big OK stamp just sitting there stamping all our requests. It’s not too hard to see where so much confusion/anger/depression comes from if that’s our view of God. We’re all ok with saying things like “well of course I don’t give my child everything they want.” but if someone makes that connection to God we go “but, but! no! that’s different! I’m an adult!” compared to who? Certainly not compared to God.

What about holding us accountable then? If I wanted to take a hard line, then I would say that if we were robots, and we were created with a law in place and we broke that law, even if we were forced to, then we would still be considered broken and the law would still apply. We might say that was immoral and unfair, but by what standard? Certainly it would be a standard other than our Creator.

However, this is where the more realistic view of the reformers comes in. It’s not like God pulls some into heaven whether they want to go or not, or pushes others to hell when they don’t want to. The issue is that man loves his sin and hates God by nature. So when they are condemned to hell, they are so justly. Some get justice, others get mercy. There is no injustice with God.

All that said, I do enjoy watching all the varieties of movies in which we create robots that will one day conquer us. Interesting to think about though, even if I’m not too worried about it happening.

End of line.