The question of free will versus determinism is a question that has grappled the interests of the greatest minds of humanity.  Abraham Lincoln, for example, wrote a famous meditation on the divine will, in which he puzzled over the boundaries between the free will he recognized as present in mankind and the control of God over His creation [1].  Leo Tolstoy, in the last 90 or so pages of War And Peace, outright denied the existence of free will whatsoever.

What makes free will necessary, or even worthwhile, from the point of view of God and man?  Without forgetting the fact that God is ultimately in control of the universe, why would He design any space at all for free will?  Why was it essential for His plans for mankind to possess the freedom to choose (because the assumption that we are created means that our attributes were created with a design and a plan in mind, however they have been corrupted in practice).

The importance of the freedom of choice in the Bible ought to be readily apparent.  For example, at the very beginning of the Bible we see a choice between the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, representing two approaches to life and law, one obedient to God’s plans and the other seeking to preempt God as the authority in one’s life.  From the mistaken choice many evils have followed.  Nonetheless, God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to decide for themselves life or death, blessing or cursing (Deuteronomy 30:19).  He told them to choose life, but they chose death freely.  So have the vast majority of their descendents, so far.

Let us therefore examine some of the purposes of free will in the divine order.  For one, free will is necessary for responsibility.  It is only where someone is free that they can be held responsible.  Those beings (like animals) that are not considered to be “rational” are denied responsibility for their actions.  Rather their owners are considers responsible for what they do.  Those who are not of the age of majority (or the “age of reason) are not held responsible for their actions (except under those circumstances where they are “tried as an adult”), but rather their parents or guardians are held responsible, unless it can be proven that they acted with reason and intention, and therefore forfeit their protection for being minors.  Nonetheless, holding someone responsible for their actions is a tacit (but no less meaningful) recognition of someone’s rationality and free will.  We do not, and morally cannot, hold those responsible who are not competent to choose some other behavior to practice.

The reality of divine judgment, therefore, requires human responsibility.  Human responsibility for actions (both now and eternally) requires free will.  Even if this free will is ultimately circumscribed or counteracted by divine providence (since God is possessed of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, those qualities of control and power than mankind lacks, thankfully), it is still free.  Free will need not mean autonomy, after all.  Given that mankind is held accountable to the divine standard, mankind’s autonomy is clearly denied in the Scriptures.

Let us also note that the lack of pleasant options available also does not in any way negate free will nor responsibility.  The fact that someone has only bad options to choose from in certain circumstances and may choose the lesser of the evils does not remove either free will (since a choice was made or accepted) or responsibility.  That said, a recognition of options does make for a less harsh judgment, since no one can be justly blamed for picking the least horrible of a set of atrocious options.  Free will does not mean a freedom to decide the circumstances of one’s life, or the freedom to decide which choices one will be required to make (and refusing to choose is itself a choice).  Since the freedom to choose is present for all mankind, we are all equally human, and equally possessed of the rights and dignity that belong to human beings as human beings.

So far we have dwelt on responsibility and equality, but there is something even more fundamental about the existence and necessity of free will in the divine order, though intricately related to both responsibility and equality.  All of the nurturing relationships of mankind (or angel-kind or God-kind, for that matter) depend on free will.  Family, friendship, mentoring, community, marriage all depend on mutual love, honor, and respect.  Such gifts can only be freely given.  They cannot be bought or sold, coerced or obtained by fraud.  What we value can only be given freely by consent.

This fact is at the base of the importance of love in the human and divine order, whether we are speaking about the love of a husband and wife and their family, the love of a Christian congregation, or the love of the holy nation of the Jerusalem that is above [2].  Human beings long for love, honor, and respect precisely because they can only be bestowed freely by someone who thinks one worthy.  We long for that recognition, we angle for it, fight for it, write sonnets and blog entries and books for it, we file lawsuits for it, but we recognize it only counts when it is given freely and openly.  And we are free to give it or withhold it according to our will.  The burden of all sentient beings is the longing for that love and respect which must be freely given by others and the responsibility for freely giving of our own love and respect.

But why is that burden necessary for God and man (and the angels for that matter)?  What is it that God wants from us?  The Bible consistently calls mankind the children of God.  We are created in His image and likeness to grow into His children, to develop His righteous character through obedience, and if we are faithful to His covenant, then we will be given honor and responsibilities.  His love for us is such that He gave us His only begotten Son (that is, through the impregnation of the virgin Mary with His Holy Spirit) to die for us so that we may share in eternal life with our debts to sin paid in full.  How many of us would die for our friends or family, how many for our nation?  How many of us would die for those who rebel against us, insult us and mock us?  Probably not many.

And yet, despite all that God has given us (our lives, and everything else in them), He desires us to love and honor Him.  That love and honor is ours to give Him, if we choose.  If we refuse to do so, God has the power to destroy us, if He wills, but He cannot force us to love or respect Him.  Nor can we force our children, our friends, our loved ones, our family members, our brethren, our coworkers, our employees, our fellow citizens, or anyone else, to love us.  That love and that respect must be freely given.  It is only through that mutual regard among present or potential equals that the institutions that make life worth living possible:  family, community, congregation, society.  Yet all too often we take this free will for granted, and attack the ground on which our happiness depends (and that of others) by seeking to manipulate and control others because we have no faith and trust that they will love us on their free will.  But enforced love is not true love, and it does not nourish, because it is obtained by force or fraud and not consent.  Only consent brings happiness to both lover and beloved, their mutual love and regard feeding each other in a virtuous cycle.

Let us note, in closing, that the question of free will is an ultimate question because on it depends the whole of human dignity and happiness.  If our happiness ultimately depends, as it does, on the free will of others, then we can never be truly autonomous or independent.  And yet since our happiness depends on the formation of mutually consensual relationships, we too cannot escape responsibility for our actions, since we must love and honor if we are to have well-functioning relationships.  The mutuality of love and respect is a tacit (though real) recognition of the free will of others and our own personal responsibility, and is also a recognition of equality between us and those whom we freely love.  Only those beings capable of loving us are worthy of our respect.  Only those beings worthy of our respect are capable of truly loving us.  If we cannot love or respect, we can only be miserable and lonely.

Therefore, we carry a large responsibility as a result of our freedom.  This responsibility is inseparable from our freedom, because the freedom that we possess as human beings springs from our identity as human beings and not any ethnic, class, gender, or cultural identity.  Since we are both responsible and free, and cannot escape the necessity of exercising that free will in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, let us choose wisely, for much depends on our choices, far more than we could ever imagine.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/a-meditation-on-the-divine-will/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/the-many-and-the-one-the-relationship-between-love-and-political-freedom/