The answer to this question is not as obvious as one might think. On one side, free will is the basic requirement for any action to be worthy of moral praise or moral blame. And if heaven is where all good things come together and are lived out, than yes, you might think of course there must be genuine free will in heaven. But if that's true, do we have the real possibility to choose to sin in heaven? That is equally strange, because sin is the one reality that heaven must never allow in! And so the deeper you dig into what anyone actually means by free will (or heaven for that matter), the more difficult this question becomes.
However a little background work will help us find where we should probably land on this. Traditionally, there are two ways to understand free will. In their definitions both views try to give the most intuitive answer to the following question: What are the conditions necessary that will make someone morally accountable and responsible for their actions? The first group will say something like this: Free will is the ability to act unencumbered according to your own desires. It is the ability to act according to what you really want to do. Pretty basic. This they say is the necessary condition that makes someone truly responsible for their actions. For example, if a journalist cannot publish a story he wrote because of threats from the local mafia, he is not able to act according to his true desires. He choices are being forced on him from the outside against what he really wants to do. And thus, on this understanding, he is not able to act freely. They would say his will is being encumbered. This is the view of free will taken by Compatibilists. More on Compatibilism later.
However a little background work will help us find where we should probably land on this. Traditionally, there are two ways to understand free will. In their definitions both views try to give the most intuitive answer to the following question: What are the conditions necessary that will make someone morally accountable and responsible for their actions? The first group will say something like this: Free will is the ability to act unencumbered according to your own desires. It is the ability to act according to what you really want to do. Pretty basic. This they say is the necessary condition that makes someone truly responsible for their actions. For example, if a journalist cannot publish a story he wrote because of threats from the local mafia, he is not able to act according to his true desires. He choices are being forced on him from the outside against what he really wants to do. And thus, on this understanding, he is not able to act freely. They would say his will is being encumbered. This is the view of free will taken by Compatibilists. More on Compatibilism later.
The second group want to say something stronger: Free will is the ability to genuinely choose among various alternatives. Free will is not just being free from outside forces that might manipulate you to act contrary to your desires (like the mafia), but also being free from inside forces and necessitating compulsions from within you. Conditions like your own physical brain chemistry or your own internal nature that might determine your action. They would grant there are certainly forces inside you that might influence you, but if the will is truly free it must be able to genuinely choose among multiple alternatives despite those influences without anything inside them or outside them that would determine their decision. The key word here is determine. So a journalist's decision to denounce government corruption is free not only because its what he really wanted to do, but also because within his own psychology (or even from God) he was not necessarily compelled one way or the other. He could have genuinely chosen among the various options to write what he wrote. This is called libertarian free will.
You see if what the journalist publishes is what he actually desired to write, then Compatibilists have enough information to say he certainly has free will. But the Libertarian needs to know more. Are the molecules and chemicals in his brain part of a deterministic system such that he could not have chosen anything other than what he in fact did choose? If such a deterministic system exists, Libertarians will say no he cannot be genuinely free. Compatibilists say these additional facts have no bearing on whether someone has free will or is morally responsible. The journalist is accountable only in so far as he is able to act in accordance with his desires, regardless of whether their desires are physically or metaphysically determined or not. Do you see how this works?
I'll let the cat out of the bag. In my view a Compatibilist account of free will seems to make better sense of the assumptions the biblical writers, and in my view better sense of moral accountability altogether. I only came to this view a few years ago. Of course, more than a blog post would be necessary to outline the various reasons I find myself in this camp. But one argument has proven to be very compelling for me, which is related to the question at the beginning.
Can we genuinely sin in heaven? Notice a Compatibilist understanding of free will allows him to say “no” to this question, but also allows him to believe on his understanding that genuine free will can still truly exist in heaven. Since free will is the ability to act according to your true desires, and being that we will only genuinely desire good things in heaven, then there is room within this view for heaven to be both always sin-free and also contain wills that are free. It is simple, straightforward, and intuitive –at least on this question. But notice also that a Libertarian understanding of free will requires them to say “yes” to this question in order for heaven to be a place where genuine free will can exist. That seems a hard bullet to bite. Because we should probably say about heaven –at the very least– that there will not be sin there. And more than that, we seem to be compelled to say we should never be capable of sin in heaven. But perhaps they can bite a different bullet and just say well in heaven we just won't have free will like we do now. That's a hard sell as well, because free will is always the necessary precondition for any act to be morally good. And the one thing we should probably say about heaven is that it is the one place where all good things live, exist and thrive.
I know some of you are thinking: what does it matter? These hypothetical questions are just philosophical games. You are right that many can treat it that way. Nevertheless, I have never had such a revolution in my thinking about sanctification and how I might grow in my spiritual walk than the moment I solidified my thoughts on the free-will question. How do I choose good and not sin today? These two views have very different answers to this very practical question. And unfortunately a person's unreflective default understanding of these sorts of ideas will almost always be the reigning cultural understanding of them. And we know that pattern usually doesn't bode well for those seeking “not to be conformed to the world.”
You see if what the journalist publishes is what he actually desired to write, then Compatibilists have enough information to say he certainly has free will. But the Libertarian needs to know more. Are the molecules and chemicals in his brain part of a deterministic system such that he could not have chosen anything other than what he in fact did choose? If such a deterministic system exists, Libertarians will say no he cannot be genuinely free. Compatibilists say these additional facts have no bearing on whether someone has free will or is morally responsible. The journalist is accountable only in so far as he is able to act in accordance with his desires, regardless of whether their desires are physically or metaphysically determined or not. Do you see how this works?
I'll let the cat out of the bag. In my view a Compatibilist account of free will seems to make better sense of the assumptions the biblical writers, and in my view better sense of moral accountability altogether. I only came to this view a few years ago. Of course, more than a blog post would be necessary to outline the various reasons I find myself in this camp. But one argument has proven to be very compelling for me, which is related to the question at the beginning.
Can we genuinely sin in heaven? Notice a Compatibilist understanding of free will allows him to say “no” to this question, but also allows him to believe on his understanding that genuine free will can still truly exist in heaven. Since free will is the ability to act according to your true desires, and being that we will only genuinely desire good things in heaven, then there is room within this view for heaven to be both always sin-free and also contain wills that are free. It is simple, straightforward, and intuitive –at least on this question. But notice also that a Libertarian understanding of free will requires them to say “yes” to this question in order for heaven to be a place where genuine free will can exist. That seems a hard bullet to bite. Because we should probably say about heaven –at the very least– that there will not be sin there. And more than that, we seem to be compelled to say we should never be capable of sin in heaven. But perhaps they can bite a different bullet and just say well in heaven we just won't have free will like we do now. That's a hard sell as well, because free will is always the necessary precondition for any act to be morally good. And the one thing we should probably say about heaven is that it is the one place where all good things live, exist and thrive.
I know some of you are thinking: what does it matter? These hypothetical questions are just philosophical games. You are right that many can treat it that way. Nevertheless, I have never had such a revolution in my thinking about sanctification and how I might grow in my spiritual walk than the moment I solidified my thoughts on the free-will question. How do I choose good and not sin today? These two views have very different answers to this very practical question. And unfortunately a person's unreflective default understanding of these sorts of ideas will almost always be the reigning cultural understanding of them. And we know that pattern usually doesn't bode well for those seeking “not to be conformed to the world.”
No comments:
Post a Comment