God and Free will

Trying to understand free will and God’s role in it

find image here

The topic of free will always seems to throw me into deep and spiraling thinking, every time it comes into mind. Understanding what we are truly in control of, and to what extent we hold control of our lives.

I can choose, at this very moment, to stand up, turn around, and sit down. All by my own will, and with full intention behind every action taken, right?

Well, the argument comes from those I have recently come to find are called determinists, that there is no such thing as free will, as it is an uncaused cause, but that every action ever taken has been done as a reaction to a prior cause.

So essentially, you standing up, and turning around and sitting down, all by your own will, is actually just your brain, as a whole, being in a state that caused you to act in that way, and your brain could not get to that state without biological processes, which are physical. And we know physical processes do not really have free will.

But if we look past all of this, and really strip down the whole philosophical determinism and libertarianism (which argue there is agent causation that occurs with no physical cause), if we go on the assumption that God has given us free will, to whatever extent that stands to be true or not, then what does that mean?

Well, God has given us the choice to choose what we want; that’s why Adam and Eve ate the apple, Cain killed Abel, and everything that has happened since then till now has taken place. God has also taken action into His own hand, with one of the biggest events of this being seen when it is said in the Bible that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, for God to further show His power to the people of Israel.

So we see times of both.

Now we know that God is all-knowing.

Gathering all these thoughts in my mind has had me confused about my free will. He knows everything and can control me, but I have free will. It seems too confusing and counterintuitive.

So I have come to the decision that in terms of my faith, I see it as I have been put here in the world for a purpose. I can either do what the Lord wants of me, or disobey Him, whether it is by free will or our limited choices or all predestined since the start of time, whether He sees the end and beginning and can take control of my actions; these are all not going to change my approach to how I live my life.

If we were to sit and try to uncover all these philosophical ideas we have, we are counting sand in the desert. Our curiosity shouldn’t kill our focus on what truly matters (myself highly included), which is choosing, or being predetermined, to follow the will of the Lord.

In the end, I have no definite answer on free will, but I know what my stand on my choices are. After all, our finite minds can only try to comprehend so much.

Stay blessed!