Exercises In Free Will
Let me know how you do by posting your results below.
Decide that octopus sushi is now your favorite food.
Decide that pink is now your favorite color.
If pink is already your favorite color, decide that brown is now your favorite color.
If you like country music, decide that you now like industrial-techno music.
If you like classical music, decide that you now like rap music.
If you believe in UFOs, stop.
If you don’t believe in UFOs, start.
If you are in a healthy marriage, decide to not be in love with your spouse for 20 minutes.
If you are single, decide to be in love with the next single, non-family member of the opposite gender and appropriate age that you meet.
April 24th, 2006 at 11:04 am
I passed with flying colors. I got free will coming out my ears… I chose not to do the exercises.
April 24th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Nice. To be or not to be is the question. No, actually the question is what is the difference between doing and being? Are we free will agents when it comes to things like love, passions and faith?
April 25th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Ah, metaphysics…
I read something recently by J.P. Moreland (my go-to guy for metaphysics) about how we can’t decide to believe something because decisions are a product of our beliefs. To decide something that causes your beliefs to change is to say that your beliefs essentially cut off the limb they were sitting on.
…which is really ironic, considering Moreland is Arminian (AFAIK).
It also depends on what you mean by “free will.” The free will equation depends heavily on what it is that your “free will” is resolving to do….
* Is it objectively possible? If it resolves to do the impossible, then no, there’s no free will (”I resolve to draw a square circle”).
* Is it subjectively possible? If it resolves to do the possible, then it depends on whether it’s possible for you (e.g., “I resolve to flap my arms and fly across the room,” vs. “I resolve to eat the fruit from this tree”).
I think you’re squarely in the “subjectively possible” arena with the questions you led off with… or are you?
Good post chief… this is fun…
April 25th, 2006 at 10:41 am
I was thinking about romance in literature and how we accept that romantic love is something that happens to us. We are not in control of it. We don’t choose it. It’s just the way the stars align and we fall in love. The phrase “fall in love” even implies it’s something that we don’t intend.
I think of a Montague loving a Capulet. Or stories of inter-racial/inter-faith romances in the old South. Or romances spanning social classes (Titanic, The Great Gatsby, etc). I think of fathers and mothers trying to convince their children to break things off out of love and for the good of the child. Notice that the¬†parents are portrayed as ignorant and standing in the way of what is meant to be. I think of movies like Mona Lisa Smile where a character marries someone they don’t love (but want to) because they know it’s the most practical thing they could do for their benefit. Notice that those characters are portrayed as hypocrites that either compromise their life or end up in pieces and have to start over.
So while the more common view of love is that it is beyond our control, the more common view of salvation within the church is that we are the acting agent that ultimately decides to choose Christ or not. We are told that all we have to do to be saved is put our faith in Jesus Christ. But that seems more closely related to choosing to BE in love than choosing to DO a task. And thus, a disconnect.
April 25th, 2006 at 11:38 am
I thought you were going to say something about “choosing to be gay.” Thoughts there?
April 25th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Related, but out of scope of the originally intended topic.
April 25th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
So what we mean when we say “free will” is not actually as broad and expansive as the term “free will” may suggest. What we really mean is the “freedom to pursue our will”, rather than the “freedom to control our will”. If that’s the case, then it seems more of a political issue (i.e. “free will available in the US, but not in China”).
I agree, we aren’t as free as we’d like to be, in controlling our will. It looks like our will is the end product of a set of inputs, few of which we control.
“So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. You will say then to me, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?’
Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory” Romans 9:18-22