The Bondage of Free Will, Part One

Free will.  If you’re ever looking for a can of worms to open, there’s one for you.  The subject is fraught with confusion, contradictions, and complications.  Do humans have free will?  If so, can their acts be predicted ahead of time?  Could an omniscient God know what a person with free will would do next?  Could an all-powerful God plan what a person with free will would do next?  And on the flip side, if a person has free will, doesn’t that mean that he is responsible for his actions?  If he doesn’t have free will, can he claim freedom from responsibility?

Does free will – the power of choice – mean the same thing as ability – the power of doing?  Is the human will self-determining, or is it determined by the person’s character?

These questions are not irrelevant or unimportant.  Our answers to them will define our ideas of God, of man, of life, and of death.  To be confused on this subject is to be confused about who you are, why you are here, and where you are headed.  Whether you believe that you’re a chance group of atoms, purposeless and without a destiny, or whether you conclude that you’re a human created in the image of God, set on earth for the purpose of glorifying Him and standing before a future of eternal life or eternal death, you had better evaluate both sides and make pretty sure that you’re on the right track!

The point of the discussion on free will, generally speaking, is to establish the fact of human responsibility.  (Of course, not everyone wants to believe in human responsibility, because that implies a higher authority.  But whether you want to believe it or not, responsibility to a higher law is a fact of life – thank God!  Were humanity the ultimate authority, there would be no such thing as right and wrong, and criminals, mass murderers, and violent dictators would be not only free from punishment, but actually free from guilt!)  Assuming that sin exists, and that it is “lack of conformity to God’s law,” the question is: how can human beings be held accountable for their actions, unless their will is free?

It’s obvious that in any discussion, the only way to avoid misunderstanding and confusion is by being careful to define the terms being used.  So the question becomes: what does it mean for a person’s will to be free?  What is free will?

There are two definitions – two ways of approaching the issue – and we ought to consider, first, which definition has a better right to the term, “free will,” and second, under which definition (if any) free will actually belongs to man.

I will define free will in the first place as: The ability of a rational being to act upon his circumstances in accordance with his own character, without direct alien interference between his character and will.

Let’s unpack that definition.

A rational being: this excludes animals, and includes humans, angels, and God.  Basically, it means thinking, self-conscious beings.

To act upon his circumstances: to make a decision based on what is going on around him.  For example, if you asked me if I liked asparagus, I’d say, “No way!”  But if I was starving, and you offered me a plate of asparagus, I’d eat it and thank you.  So, thanks to circumstances, we often do things that we don’t “want” to do in the abstract, but, all things considered, we do “want” to do them.

In accordance with his own character: no rational creature makes a decision that is inconsistent with who he is.  In other words, we each have certain principles, motives, desires, loves, etc., and that’s what makes us who we are.  My will cannot act independently of me.  Take for instance my choice of a career.  I being who I am, in the circumstances in which I am, could never choose to be a doctor.  It’s just impossible.  I’d never do that, unless either my circumstances or my character changed drastically.  But is my will less free because I literally can’t choose to be a doctor?  Of course not.  The reason I can’t choose to be a doctor is because of who I am, my likes and dislikes, my personality.  Obviously, my will won’t ever go against my personality.  That would be some bizarre form of schizophrenia.

Without direct alien interference between his character and will: this is a tricky bit to word right.  If you hold a gun to my head and tell me to make a pizza, am I free?  No.  Is my will free?  Yes.  How is that?  Well, I could always choose to die, right?  You aren’t coming between me and my will.   You’re just coming between my will and the outside world.  You are becoming an urgent part of my circumstances.  So you are interfering, but not directly.  As for the use of the word alien – no, we’re not talking about E.T. here!  Alien simply means foreign.  Then too, my character could change.  It’s possible that something I never would have done five years ago, because it would have been inconsistent with who I was then, I now do without even thinking about it.  If my character is changed by something other than myself – something I either can’t or don’t resist – that doesn’t take away my free will.  It just gives it a new direction.

 

So, having gone through the definition piece by piece, let’s look at it as a whole again.  Free will is the ability of a rational being to act upon his circumstances in accordance with his own character, without direct alien interference between his character and will.

What answers does this definition provide to the questions we’ve asked above?

First of all, do humans have free will?  Naturally, we need more than just the definition to answer this question, but depending on the rest of your worldview, yes, under this definition, humans have free will.  They have the ability to act according to their character.

Can human acts be predicted?  Actually, by this definition, yes, they can.  If someone knew me and my circumstances perfectly well, that person could predict with 100% accuracy what I would do next.

Could an omniscient God know what a person with free will would do next?  Obviously, if God knows everything, He can predict with 100% accuracy what I will do next.

Could an all-powerful God plan what a person with free will would do next?  Tricky!  But yes, God can plan what a person with free will will do next.  How so?  Because God plans circumstances, and circumstances determine character, and character and circumstances together determine actions.

Are people, with this kind of free will, responsible for their actions?  Yes.  Because your actions are a result of your character, they are truly your actions.  As such, you are responsible for them.  This dovetails into a related issue, another attempt to evade responsibility: are you responsible for your character?  Although you did not create your character, and although it has been molded by many circumstances outside your control, you are responsible for your character.  Why?  Because you are your character.

If people did not have free will in this sense, could they claim freedom from responsibility?  If you weren’t able to do what your character, acting with your circumstances, would naturally lead you to do, then how could you be held responsible for your actions?  In fact, they really wouldn’t be your actions any more at all, because it wouldn’t be you doing them.

Does free will – the power of choice – mean the same thing as ability – the power of doing?  No.  Remember my doctor illustration?  My current character and circumstances together make it impossible for me to choose to be a doctor, but my will is perfectly free.

Is the human will self-determining, or is it determined by the person’s character?  The answer to this question, given our first definition, is obvious.  The human will is determined by the person’s character.

In part two, we’ll move on to the second definition of free will, so stay tuned!