This past Wednesday a young lady was giving a presentation on Sin at our church. Now before you accuse me of being a “bible thumping bandit for God” let me assure you this topic is very different than that of your typical thoughts on Sin. If you are interested in what she has to say let me know I can put you in contact with her. But that is not what I am writing this blog about. Well, sort of.
While discussing sin we talked about Free Will and why we have it. Here is the question that was presented to us that I have some thoughts on: Is Free Will a good thing or bad thing?
Here is my take: If you take the Bible literally and believe that every story in the bible happened exactly the way it is written then you read that God PUT the tree of knowledge (forbidden fruit, good and evil, etc) there. If you believe that God is all knowing and all powerful, meaning that he knows all past, present, and future happenings AND he has the power to change anything at anytime then you would also prescribe to the notion that God knew that Adam and Eve were going to “sin” and that humans would have the knowledge of good and evil. Basically saying that God knew we were going to screw up. Now, if he knew this and did not stop it from happening then that leads to the conclusion that he WANTED us to “sin” and gain this knowledge. I believe that Free Will has to do more about desire than anything. Maybe God wanted us to desire a relationship with him rather than simply having the predisposition to have to have a relationship with him. But one of the consequences of Free Will is that we now have the choice to do what we want in life regardless of how it affects those around us. If I am hit by a drunk driver on the road and killed through no fault of my own then that drivers’ Free Will caused my death. If a community of people build their city at the base of an active volcano and it erupts killing 100,000 people then their death was caused by their Free Will to build there. When a person knowingly does something that causes harm to themselves or others whether directly or indirectly it is because of Free Will. So, is it a bad thing? Why did we get this “gift from God” if it causes so much heartache and grief?
I personally don’t believe that we have Free Will so that we can go out and screw up our lives or the lives of others. I think we are given Free Will to be BETTER at the good endeavors we set out on. If we have a desire, or a passion to do good then we are motivated to do it to the best of our ability. If we simply have to and are not aware that there is another choice would we do it any better? I am speaking of voluntary things. Blinking, breathing, and other automatic functions would not apply here. I think we are given Free Will so that we as a people can thrive, enrich the lives of others, learn, develop relationships, and basically do something worthwhile and good in life. But, so many times we screw it up.
So here is my final thought. If we have this wonderful gift and we don’t use it right then we are the problem. I don’t blame God for cancer, disease, famine, homelessness, bad government, genocide, or natural disasters. Regardless of why these things are going on (mostly because of choices of man) we as humans have the choice to help those stricken by these things. We are at our best when the worst is happening to us and those around us. We are the problem.
But, we are also THE SOLUTION.
Have a wonderful day.
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