The Issue of Free Will
(Written by Kevin Hall 09.11.17)
If you peel away the layers of
these worldviews outside of Christianity, one will find evidence of one main
strategy – Explain away Creator God. They wish to “deny the Creator and to
expropriate His divine power’ (174), many making this their life’s goal. Men
like Francis Crick stated forcefully that “his goal was to explain away the
origin of life and consciousness by reducing them into physical -chemical
causes” (174).
You see, if God is discredited as “first cause” or a “personal God”,
then free will becomes a false idea
which is denied, discredited, suppressed
and is incoherent.
With the Creator God and His truth denied, then mankind is
free to live according to his own truth. Truth becomes relative – men become
reduced to states lower than the creator intended. They become labeled as
robots and machines who cannot be held accountable for their actions. The
Apostle Paul said, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as
God or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their
foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).
Notice there is a definite strategy
to deny God and to do so for selfish reasons.
Denying free will is a
reductionist strategy. Even though these secular philosophers know their ideas
do not pass the idol test [Does this contradict with what we know about the
world?] (147), even though they are experiencing some sort of cognitive
dissonance, it is in their interest to place free will into their reductionist
box. Here’s the dilemma – “Free will portrays humans as genuine moral agents
whose choices are so significant that they alter the direction of history, and
even eternity” (141). If humans are moral agents, then there must be a first
cause of morality. Hence a Creator (God) who is moral and holy – “Be holy,
because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16); “You are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am
holy and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine” (Leviticus 20:26).
Creator God places a requirement on His creation. They are free to choose, but
decisions come with consequences. Life lived outside of a Christian worldview
can only lead to a reductionist strategy. This is why the issue of free will is
so enduring – humans have been dealing with this since their beginning in the
garden of Eden. Satan’s strategy was to refute God, explain Him away and
introduce temptation to create another god. Adam and Eve took the bait, they
were cursed as well as Satan and the earth, mankind lost the ability to
dominate and ever since then the fight has continued to deny the existence of
God and His words (Genesis 3).
The human abilities that depend on
free will include willing and making choices. Most of the other abilities that
are connected I believe are all tied to our mind – these include thinking,
wishing, rationalizing, desiring, discerning, awareness or lack thereof, acting
morally or not, judging and assessing.
Left to our own desires, we keep
making a mess of things. Since the choice of Adam and Eve in the garden and the
introduction of sin, free will defense “has provided the answer to the problem
of evil” (141). We are moral agents and history “has recognized our ability to
make responsible choices” (142). God expects His creation to exercise that
moral responsibility (Deuteronomy 30:15,19). I am convinced that the same Satan
who tricked Adam and Eve in the beginning continues to trick men and women in
this age. These reductionist theories deny human dignity and aims to give
license for acting out evil and foolish desires with no accountability to the
Creator who wishes for all the best now and in eternity.
Reference:
Pearcey, N. Finding The Truth.
Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook (2015).
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