Saturday 8 March 2008

free will

i had an interesting conversation last night with one of my flatmates (who's not a christian) on free will. what is the nature of free will?

if our actions are determined by something (apart from ourselves), free will does not exist. for example, if faith is the gift of God (it is not), then we are not free to choose. we either have the ability to believe or we just don't.

however, if our actions are not determined by anything (including ourselves), free will also does not exist. if our actions are not determined by anything, we are not free to determine our actions (because our actions are not determined by anything). everything happens by chance and life is meaningless.

finally, if our actions are determined by ourselves (in and of ourselves), free will still does not exist. we cannot freely will to give ourselves free will, because we do not have the free will (prior to giving ourselves free will) to give ourselves free will.

our actions are not determined by something apart from ourselves (eg. God) or by ourselves in and of ourselves, but simply determined in accordance with God's good, pleasing and perfect will.

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