In 'Why be Free?' I concluded that freedom, genuine freedom, should not be desired and indeed is not real.
But if this is so, I think it likely that theodicy becomes impossible. Theodicy is the attempt to explain why a God that is both all-good and all-powerful allows evil to exist. One such attempt begins with the claim that we human beings (and perhaps other kinds of being too) are free and have moreover misused that freedom in such a way as to introduce evil into a world that before was perfect. This has seemed to me for some time the best kind of theodicy to pursue. But if freedom is an illusion, any free-will theodicy is doomed to failure. Indeed, if freedom is an illusion, God could have made a world with the perfect assurance that none of its inhabitants would ever sin.
But if the best of the theodicy strategies fails, belief in God becomes impossible, for His existence will come to seem plainly incompatible with the existence of evil.
So, then, we have this dilemma. We should not wish that we are free. But we should wish that we are free, for we should not wish to be forced to deny God's existence. I do not at present see a sure way out of this dilemma.
Should we say that our freedom is temporary, and that it comes about as a result of sin? This has promise. To be free is to be able to sin. But to be able to sin is to fall short of perfection. Thus we should not expect that humans were free before the Fall, when they existed in the full perfection bestowed on them by God, and that their Fall made them free.
But this response flounders. How do we explain the Fall if we do not presuppose that humans before the Fall were free? It seems we cannot. Thus we must presuppose that pre-Fall humans were free. But this is to assume that they were created in a state far short of perfect. But how can we say such a thing of God? How can we say that God brought a thing into existence in an imperfect state?
One last thought: perhaps we should say that God created us not in an imperfect state but in an immature state and that He will, in time, bring us to perfection. This does not seem absurd to me. If this can be made to work, freedom is a sign of, or perhaps constitutive of, immaturity. Do I have reason, then, to accept that freedom is real?
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3 comments:
Franklin, these are the right questions.
Freedom must be real, or everything is meaningless. That preserves the theodicy, as you pointed out here.
I commented earlier that whether we "should wish to be free" or not is moot. We simply are.
God created us in His image, which has to do with intellect, emotion, will, and freedom of will. This is all within the limits of creatures who are by no means God. We were created in a state "far short of perfect" if perfection is measured by God's omniscience, omnipotence, and other transcendent qualities. Mankind was, however, once perfect in moral qualities; nothing separated him morally from God before the fall.
Will God someday bring us to perfection? There are those who have submitted freely to God, and as it says in I John, 'we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. This is a return to moral perfection; it is the fulfillment of God's promise to those who 'hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Others will find that their freedom has brought them, by their choice, to be separated from God forever (this is what hell is about).
So freedom is not a sign of immaturity. It is a sign of being in God's image, and ultimately we will receive the results of our free choices.
Still...
I'm certainly hoping I'm on track with the kinds of things you're working through. Sometimes, even in my own blog and the conversations that flow from it, I really wish I could carry out these dialogues face to face. I'm more confident that what I've written here is true, than I am confident that it really meets the question that was raised...
I certainly do feel the tug of the view that the best, the highest kind of love is a love that is freely bewtowed.
But what do we mean by freedom here? Some take genuine freedom to imply that we could have done otherwise than we did. If this is right, then it seems that, so long as I am free, a very real possibility exists that I will sin yet again. This will hold even after God has healed the breach of the Fall and raised us to the perfection that pre-Fall man possessed.
But this seems to imply that the Fall could happen again. I resist this conclusion.
So it seems to me that genuine freedom does not imply the ability to have done otherwise. I don't want to be able to not love my wife and children. I don't want to be able to not love God. Rather, what I want is this: a perfected nature and a perfect communion with God and neighbor that will quite inevitably lead me to love as I ought.
I know that it sounds a bit strange to inject talk of what I want here. But I believe that where there is a genuine desire or need, there exists that which will fulfill it. I believe that desire as it were points to higher truths.
I think you're closer than you think here. There is genuine freedom without fear of a second fall.
Today our freedom consists of the ability to choose good or evil (the tree Adam and Eve ate from was "the knowledge of good and evil"). For those who choose life, who choose to follow God, he will give them what they have freely asked, which is righteousness. This will be in the future state ("heaven").
Then, yes, some of our "freedom" will no longer remain; the option to sin will no longer be there. But this is not a loss of freedom; it is the fulfillment of a free choice. And there will be plenty of freedom within the realm of righteous choices then, as is the case also now.
Freedom and righteousness are thus both preserved.
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