If you’ve read my book The God Conclusion or some of my articles at Southern Prose, you’ll know I’m a rather strong advocate for the concept of free will.
While many atheists and secularists would love to assert that intelligence is the defining characteristic of one’s decision on whether to believe in a God, that simply isn’t true. There are many intelligent people who believe in a supernatural God. Likewise, there are more than a few stupid atheists.
Probably the most important factor in religious beliefs is free will. We may choose what evidence we are willing to view and consider and many simply refuse to even look at any evidence that appears to conflict with their existing worldview.
Some intelligent people choose to pursue evil goals and may be classified as a criminal mastermind. Others may choose to pursue noble goals and become detectives who solve crimes. Determinism is the idea that our choices are mere illusions. Chemical reactions in our brain and our environment determine our fate.
Contrary to the opinion of people like Sam Harris, free will appears to solve so many problems–it potentially answers very difficult questions such as why does evil exist, if God is good? But free will can only effectively solve philosophical problems if it can be demonstrated to exist.
If evidence can be identified that contradicts the idea of free will, the existing worldview should be modified or perhaps even discarded. Then the question becomes, could free will only be an illusion? On the other hand, if free will exists, could it exist with rare exceptions?
I’ve been participating in a Bible study of the Book of Acts, and recently we read the chapter of Saul’s travels on the road to Damascus and his radical conversion from Judaism to Christianity. Saul was confronted and temporarily blinded. The question popped into my head: did Paul have a choice?
Come to think of it, Saul/Paul isn’t the only one. There is also Jonah, Jeremiah, Gideon, Moses, and Jehu, to name but a few. In fact, it seems that the God of the Bible overrode the free will of many great Old Testament figures. When Jonah tried to disobey God, he was swallowed by a giant fish and suffered adversity. Jeremiah protested that he was too young to become a prophet and was prodded into service. God told Gideon he had been chosen to serve in a special capacity, but Gideon asked God to allow Himself to be tested to confirm the choice. God approached Moses through a burning bush and Moses then reluctantly accepted responsibility for leading the Israelites out of Egypt.
However, there is another story about Moses that suggests he did retain his free will even after God commanded him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. It is the incident that took place after Moses began his journey back to Egypt and stopped to rest for the night. Scripture says that God came to kill Moses AFTER he had been chosen as God’s instrument because Moses had not circumcised his son Gershon. Why? The reason is unclear. My best guess is that Moses was trying to hedge his bets. Even though Moses knew God had chosen him to lead the nation of Israel out of Egypt, he was trying to hide the Jewish origins of his family by not circumcising his son.
Likewise, Saul theoretically could have refused to have his blindness healed. I suppose he could refused to follow God’s direction, but his options had been severely limited. When Saul of Tarsus exercised his free will, he hunted and persecuted the earliest Christians. However, after his fateful confrontation with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Saul essentially lost much of his free will and became motivated by the revelation of God. Before Saul had thought he was taking action that pleased God by persecuting those he believed were worshipping a false deity. After his experience Paul knew he was serving God because the risen Christ had spoken directly to him.
According to neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, free will is only an illusion. Our biology and environment determine our actions. Clearly, God’s interaction with Saul affected his free will. Belief in God is not quite the same thing as knowledge of God. Knowledge has an inverse relationship with faith.
Years ago, I didn’t believe God existed. My mind was wracked with doubts. I thought God was no more real than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Then one night I begged God to reveal Himself to me. I wanted to know if my faith was unfounded and I would be wasting my time by going to church.
This is why today I often joke that we should be careful what we wish for, because we just might get it. I can’t adequately describe the experience I had that fateful night, but I can assure you that it convinced me that God is very real. Did I lose my free will that night?
I say no, because I remain a sinner. I continue to make bad choices, but I have very little doubt that God exists. Free will exists, but perhaps it is not absolute. When God revealed Himself to Moses, Moses lost some of his ability to pretend nothing had happened. God doesn’t easily take “No” for an answer. When God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and speak on His behalf, Jonah first tried running in the other direction but that didn’t work out very well for him.
If free will didn’t exist for anyone, faith wouldn’t matter. We could fervently believe in God, but if God had not chosen us for redemption, we would be left out of Heaven. If free will didn’t exist, we would become slaves to our DNA and our environment, powerless to choose between right and wrong.
God wants free agents. Occasionally He must limit the free will of an individual to achieve a greater goal for all of humanity. If Zipporah had not circumcised Gershon, God would have likely killed Moses and chosen another to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
If Moses had free will, God has free will, too.
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