The Reality of Free Will It would be completely meaningless were God, on the one hand, to compel men to do certain things and, on the other, to reward or punish them. It would surely be unjust were the Creator of the world to set us on whatever path He chose, by means of His power and His will, and then to punish us for actions we have committed without any choice on our part. If the deeds of men are, in reality, the acts of God, all corruption, evil and cruelty must be regarded as His work, whereas His most sacred being is utterly pure of all such corruption and injustice. If there were no free choice for man, the whole concept of mans religious accountability would be unjust. The oppressive tyrant would deserve no blame and the just would merit no praise, because responsibility has meaning only within the sphere of what is possible and attainable for man. Man deserves blame or merits praise only when he is able to decide and to act freely; otherwise, there can be no question of blame or of praise. Those who adhere to the above position have gone to such extremes in asserting the principle of mans free will that they regard man as being the undisputed possessor of absolute free will in all his volitional acts. They imagine that God is unable to extend His rule over the will and wishes of His creatures and those men’s volitional acts are excluded from the realm of His power. This, in summary, is the position of the proponents of absolute free will.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 17:59:15 +0000
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