Why is there so much "evil" in the world? Depending on the flavor of Christianity, the answer is because of Satan, because of man, or some mix thereof. At the root of that evil, regardless of the source, is a choice, a decision of Free Will.
So, when we ask why does God allow all of this evil in the world, the answer comes back that this evil is the natural consequence of Free Will, beings choosing to act against the will of God. The answer continues; this Free Will is necessary so that those who are saved for all eternity will not robotically love God, but rather will choose to love God with all of the depth and sincerity that we would find in the best human loves, or even greater. In order for this to occur, people also need to be able to utterly reject the will of God and to commit acts on the opposite end of that spectrum as well. Maybe so. Maybe not.
Now is about the time in the argument when many skeptics examine the themes of fate and predestination in the Bible, exploring the Salvation of the Elect, but let's dig a little deeper into the philosophical argument instead of that well trodden, and controversial, path.
What Is It?
First, let's look at what Free Will is. Clearly it is not the ability to choose to do anything, as you or I can't choose to fly like a bird, but no Christian would argue that that denies Free Will. You can't choose to be the president of the United States of America if you were born in Luxembourg, but, again, that's not a cancellation of Free Will, just a law. So Free Will can be said to be the ability within yourself to select from the options which are truly available to you, and those options can be, and are, limited.
(Some modern research is questioning whether or not the options are truly available to select or if the outcome is selected for you by chemical and other factors, but we'll set that aside for now.)
In most Christian theology, Free Will must include the option to love God or reject God, and part of that rejection of God is inextricably tied to the ability to work many kinds of evils to mankind. Is it really inextricable? Is evil really a necessary byproduct of the Free Will in this equation?
God's Way
God has Free Will. No Christian could possibly argue to the contrary. Yet God is restricted in His Free Will, even more than we are. Really? In some very important ways, yes. Consider that God can't lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18), and even more significantly, God can't do evil (Job 34:10)! Furthermore, no Christian can argue against the depth or sincerity of God's love (1 John 4:9).
So God has Free Will, and has true love, but doing evil is not even an option for Him. God, Himself, is a model which proves that evil is not a necessary byproduct for Free Will to work.
But wait! What about that all-important choice? Could someone with God's type of Free Will still choose to reject God? That answer appears to be yes. Consider Deuteronomy 9:4, where God chose to favor the Israelites despite their non-deserving nature:
“It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” NIVAgain, consider how God chose to favor Jacob over Esau according to Romans 9:11-13
Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” NIVIf God is free to choose to favor one person or group of people over another, then the flip side of that decision is that He chose not to favor another. In other words, God chose to give His love in one case and not in another.
So if we operated with God-like Free Will, we would be prevented from working evils on each other, yet we would be capable of love, and it would be our choice who we love, and the depth and sincerity of that love.
Evil Paradox
Evil is not a necessary byproduct of Free Will, at least if you can trust what the Bible says about God. That creates an HUGE problem.
Why? Well, then, evil is not necessary. If evil is not necessary, then all of our suffering as the consequence of evils is meaningless and pointless. If this suffering is optional, then God is not good or loving, because no good God would intentionally make His beloved creations suffer for no reason.
This position is reinforced by the concept of Salvation, because at that time, the Elect will arise to a life where they can't do any evils or even the smallest sins. All it would take is to lift that restriction on sin, to allow for a choice of not to love God, and you have a valid selection process which would work on Earth without the need for all of this unsavory evil. Now how God could fairly treat those who chose not to love Him is a matter for further debate.
I think there are logical flaws in your argument.
ReplyDeleteFirst - to paraphrase Capt. Jack Sparrow, what a man can do and what a man will do are not the same thing. Choice is about "will", what we will to do. It is not limited by what we can do. Bringing what we "will" to reality in time and space may or may not be within our capability but that does not define our will to do so.
So choice, or will to choose, precedes the act of will (regardless of the science we may or may not discuss). I MAY choose to fly like a bird, and suffer the consequences of that choice in my attempt to bring it to fruition.
The fact that I may choose and choose to act on that choice can result in unloving acts. I think we agree. Where we disagree is in the distinction between the choice and the capacity.
Action, the capacity to do is fundamental to life (even "vegetables" grow, and convert energy to matter). To argue we could have the capacity of choice without the capacity to act is logically inconsistent. So the fruit of our action may be well or ill if we have choice, it cannot be otherwise.
So in my capacity to will I am like God, in my capacity to bring that will to fruition I am unlike God. It is not that will must result in evil, but that our exercise of that will frequently does. The fact that God is capable of exercising His will fully and completely without evil does not prove we are capable of the same - at least not yet.
God is light - evil is dark, the absence of light. God is not "limited" by the capacity not to be God. This is like saying "being" is limited in that it is not able not to be.
When the Elect arise they will be "as He is". To say they could be the Elect with the capacity for "sin" is to say they can both be "as He is" and not be "as He is". This too, is illogical.
I do not think that our free will is an opportunity to "prove" our love but the inescapable byproduct of our capacity to eventually be "as He is".
The problem of evil is one I cannot answer beyond the witness of my experience. The evil He has allowed in my life, most caused directly or indirectly by myself, has made me "better". By this I mean happier, more content, (I hope) more compassionate, more loving and less selfish. Not because of the evil but because of my choice to trust Him and lean on Him (sometimes only eventually) through the suffering. It is not that evil is good, it isn't. The miracle is His ability to bring the Divine to the equation and thereby change the outcome. That is His will in action.
Hello David, and thanks for the comment.
DeleteI may have some issues in my logic, but I do not think that you have provided sufficient proof to show it. For instance, you say:
"I MAY choose to fly like a bird, and suffer the consequences of that choice in my attempt to bring it to fruition."
However, you can't actually choose to fly like a bird. You can choose to try to fly like a bird, but you will never flap your arms fast enough to actually fly like a bird.
I think you are conflating two different concepts here: Free Will (the ability to choose your actions) and Want (your desires). (Although, I will grant you that there often is much overlap, and later in my argument above I think that I implicitly conflated the two myself, in some respects.) Consider this:
You could not say that humans had Free Will if their minds could choose to love or to rebel against God but their bodies (physical and/or spiritual) were Divinely forced to worship Him regardless, right?
On the flip side, if you only want (or like) to eat bananas and peaches (limited Want), and before you on a table were bananas, oranges, peaches, dragon fruit, apples, etc., you would not claim that your Free Will is restricted, right? It is still up to you to choose which fruit to eat. What if that table only contained bananas and apples instead? Again, even though the choices are more limited, it is still up to you to decide, and so you still have Free Will.
You said:
"So in my capacity to will I am like God"
Using how you've defined "will," surely you are not suggesting that God Wants to do evil or Wants to lie from time to time, but chooses not to, right? Based on Jesus' words, the thought of adultery or the thought of hate are equivalent to the sins of the actions. So you are not like God in the capacity of will. Rather, you seem to have greater capacity, in some regards.
You said:
"God is light - evil is dark, the absence of light. God is not "limited" by the capacity not to be God. This is like saying "being" is limited in that it is not able not to be."
This actually highlights my point in a way. There are many ways in which beings can exist, include God. You are claiming here that God has certain incontrovertible traits by definition of what He is. I am arguing that humans could have been designed the same way. It does not make sense to say that humans had to be an all (like we are now) or nothing (like the Elect will be) affair in regards to good and sin.
In the end, it all comes down to love, right? Either you choose to love God, or you don't, and that defines your fate for all eternity. I am just asking the logical question: What part of deciding whether or not to love God requires me to be able to torture and slay other humans? I don't know if you are married or not, but I am. I can assure you, there was no bloodshed required or involved in choosing to love my wife. No animals were harmed in the making of this film. ;-)
The combination of "Free" and "Will" certainly confuses the issue. I think the interpretation of "free" is where the parallel but different ideas may be combined. If you mean to imply only what I am fully capable of realizing is what I am "Free" to will, then I would agree there is very little in the way of Free Will for man. The best laid plans and all.
ReplyDeleteI interpret free will to mean the capacity to choose to act (or not). The ability to bring any act to fruition is sketchy at best.
In you example I can also choose not to eat, or to go out looking somewhere else for peaches. This is obvious to me so I don't understand why people restrict the definition of Free Will to mean more than choice.
Again, it is capacity to choose that makes me "like" God not similarity of choices ;-)
Humans could have been designed like Angels, but apparently that wasn't enough either ( that is a real quandary isn't it?)
I'm not sure I agree the basis for evil comes down to choosing to love God or not. I'll have to mull this and reply later. I am married and my wife is expecting me.
Later,
David
Hello again, David, and welcome back.
Delete"This is obvious to me so I don't understand why people restrict the definition of Free Will to mean more than choice."
Yeah, I know what you mean, and it is a good point. Not knowing you, I had to assume that you may not follow through with that logic, so I left a couple options on the table... :-)
"Humans could have been designed like Angels, but apparently that wasn't enough either ( that is a real quandary isn't it?)"
That, sir, is a very good question, and one which I have no good answer for.
"I'm not sure I agree the basis for evil comes down to choosing to love God or not."
My statement was slightly presumptuous, given that I don't know what flavor of Christianity you subscribe to. Please, feel free to comment if you come to a conclusion.
Back again...
ReplyDeleteAfter refreshing myself with the thread I agree that...
"You could not say that humans had Free Will if their minds could choose to love or to rebel against God but their bodies (physical and/or spiritual) were Divinely forced to worship Him regardless, right?".
The human spirit's response to physical restriction is celebrated. This is in fact the form of "Free Will" that most closely expresses my conception of the term. If I use a para-glider to "fly like a bird", does the fact I'm not flapping negate my use of the same principles of fluid dynamics?
I too am unable to answer the question of Angels, but to further the point a bit, how does the "evil" of a fallen Angel relate to the human capacity for evil and their capacity for choice. Without trying to determine the number on a pinhead what I think we can still say is that it is not the capacity for evil that is required for redemption. The demons do believe and shudder, we may believe and choose.
"Either you choose to love God, or you don't, and that defines your fate for all eternity. I am just asking the logical question: What part of deciding whether or not to love God requires me to be able to torture and slay other humans?"
So after thinking about it a little more I believe it is true your choice defines your fate. I also think the capacity to choose does require the capacity to choose not (and the evil that implies). Where we may be at odds is a workable concept where I have the capacity for choice but don't have the capacity for choice.
Thanks for the follow up, David!
Delete"I think we can still say is that it is not the capacity for evil that is required for redemption."
That is a very interesting observation you are making here. Thanks for "furthering the point."
"Where we may be at odds is a workable concept where I have the capacity for choice but don't have the capacity for choice."
Fair enough. It is an interesting question to ponder, for sure, but obviously beyond either of our scopes to answer with 100% confidence. I was just going from the perspective that if it can be conceived in my mind, then it should have been an option available to God, who, as the faithful would argue, can make things occur which are beyond all our comprehension.
I appreciate you participating in this discussion, David! Stop by any time.