Expert: Tyler Eldred (formally known as DarkBlue) - 2/11/2009

Question
I was just wondering about free will and fate as explained in the Bible. I believe that the Bible doesn't contradict itself, yet these (for lack of a better term) doubts about free will/fate keep coming up. I'm looking for some clarifications. Doesn't the Bible indicate that we as humans have free will, but also in other places say that we are fated/predestined?

Thanks

Answer
Hi Jason,
   I am very sorry that I have taken so long to get back to you. I want to thank you for asking this question, because it shows that you are not satisfied with merely believing the scriptures in a shallow and empty way, but that you seek a rich and full understanding of the core tenants of your faith. It is good to have such a desire, for truths of God are real, deep, and beautiful. So I encourage you always to have patience and hope whenever your faith is challenged.
   First I would like to say that free will certainly seems like it must true. I do not know its nature exactly, but based on what I believe about God, it should has the following attributes: a free will where are actions matter, where it is not our actions or our environment but we who are responsible for the morality of our actions, where who we are and what we do depends (at least partially) on ourselves, where we love freely without force or manipulation, and where our actions cause real sorrow - or real joy - according to the magnitude and direction of our will.  
   I'm not sure which exact passages in the Bible you are talking about, but there are three general questions about the relationship between free will and God's divine nature that I know of. Perhaps it is the case that your question is a little different, but hopefully discussing these will help. The first is "How is it possible both that God can know what I am going to do, and that I choose that action freely and that I was not made to do it?" The second is "How is the concept of the Holy Spirit changing the hearts of man compatible with the fact that we are free to make our own choices (and what does it mean when St Paul uses expressions like "it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me")?" The third is "How are phrases like "God has a plan" or "God is in control" compatible with the fact that He gives us control over our will to such a degree that it account for the problem of evil?"
   The argument that is commonly associated with the problem presented in the first question goes something like this: Since God knows in advance that I that I'm going to do a certain action, it must be that I will do it, which means that I don't have a choice about the matter. This question goes back to the early Church in the 300s with St Augustine of Hippo. The response that the famous theologian St Thomas Aquinas gave in the 1200s, and the response that most philosophers give today is that the sense of the word must here is a ambiguous word trap, because it can be taken two different ways, neither of which make for an effective argument. We would ask "Do we mean to say that 'if I go for a walk at 5:10pm tomorrow (for example) then it must be the case that God knows it,' or do we mean to say that 'if it must be the case that I go for a walk at 5:10pm tomorrow, then God knows it?'" The first is true because God is omniscient, but it doesn't seem to imply that I am not free to choose not to go on a walk or not, and the second is true, but it gives us no reason to believe that going for a walk tomorrow is something I must do, even though it is true that God would know of it.
   In other words, and perhaps less confusing words, I could see you from across the street if you went into a pastry shop and therefore know that you were going to buy a pastry without me influencing your decision at all. Or, as another example, a husband can know that his wife loves him without forcing her to love him. What this says is that knowledge and information does manipulate the will in any way, even if it is perfect knowledge or perfect information. A discussion of this matter, and also a more complex argument involving things that were true in the past (and how that still doesn't necessarily imply that God's foreknowledge is incompatible with our free will) can be read in an article called "Truth and Freedom" written by my former Philosophy of Religion teacher, Prof. Trenton Merricks. My answer to this particular question is taken straight out Merrick’s explanation of the matter. A link is located here: http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/118/1/29
   For the second question we might ask "How is it possible that God can be compelling enough to convert others, yet those people still retain their freedom?" It is clear that any attempt to imagine this process as  something like a strong wind that is blowing someone in one direction as opposed to another at some point renders a person's free will useless in a way that we cannot help but think would be wrong. But let us consider it a different way instead. To use an analogy, the fact that gravity exists doesn't really mean that someone's free will is being restricted. Rather we would say that it is simply 'the way it is,' meaning that gravity is simply part of the physical context in which our free will operates.
   Neither does it make sense to say gravity impedes somebody’s will to fly any more than it makes sense to say that the laws of geometry impede someone's ability to draw a triangle with four corners, nor, to use a common expression, does it mean that we are speaking of a some oppressing enemy of the free will when we say that someone cannot have their cake and eat it too. So, if we consider that a) we were naturally built to love and serve God, and b) God is inherently beautiful and worthy of praise, we find that it is not so much that God is bending someone's will when He 'changes their heart,' but rather it that that person becomes confronted with these truths about the reality of God, and as a result, choosing to love Him is the only thing that makes sense and all other ideas are irrational by comparison.
   In the case of St Paul's expression "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me," (Galatians 2), and other expressions like that, there are three interpretations of what sort of situation he may be describing. The first is that He is describing a state of His will where He is fully willing to listen and obey someone and that His will is simply focused on God's will, just like a mother may be able to think of nothing but her children. This fits the sentence in the sense that a messenger may visit a foreign land on the behalf of his king, and the messenger would not think of transmitting his own opinions.
   The second interpretations describe a similar situation but with a different emphasis. Using our above discussion of God's compelling beauty, Paul may be specifically describing the compelling effect of that beauty, which might be analogous to a desert wanderer racing towards an oasis, where he would ascribe the fact that he was able to drink to the fact that the oasis was there, rather than the fact that he ran toward it (though that would be, in a technical sense true as well). That sort of account of the oasis would then be like Paul's account of Christ living in his stead.
   The third interpretation is that since the will is a gift from God, it is possible to literally give up some of it, or exchange it for God's will. We imagine that this process would not be straightforward on account of our own selfishness, just like we have a human inclination to cling to our life, and not give it up when the cause necessitates it, even though Jesus tell us anyone that loses his life for my sake will indeed keep his life. The best analogy I can think of here is Jesus' miracle at Cana where He changes the water into wine. This miracle, then, would be symbolic of man's conversion of will, and Paul's words of Christ will acting in the place of His could be taken quite literally. Regardless of the metaphysical truth of that matter, we should note here that the concept of giving up one's will so that Christ's will can take its place will always be a remain a beautiful description of the process of converting our hearts.
   The third question was first formally presented to me by a friend of mine once who claimed that 'It cannot both be that evil exists because of free will and that God will take care of the situation on account of His goodness.' Note that this claim is equivalent to saying "you cannot account for all the evil in the world except for using free will while asserting God is still in control, yet those two things are incompatible." I mostly agree with the first part because I think that free will and God 'being in control' are both things that account for the evil in the world (on the part of the free will, a lot of the descriptions that I used when first defining free will relate that reason). I disagree with the second part, that our free will and God’s control are incompatible, because of the sort of things that I described in the previous paragraphs. That and, of course, God stepping in directly, like when He calms the storm. (As a side note, I happen to believe that some of the reason that that sort of thing doesn't happen all the time because He desires for us to pray for it, He knows of good that come from it, or that or that the problem involves does not currently need to be expelled for good to prevail.) So we see that this isn't too much more than the problem of evil and the same free will problems mashed together.
   Hopefully all of this argument and reasoning has been able to clarify some of the difficulties on this matter of fate and free will, but we should note that it isn't about having the right argument and counterargument, but about having the courage and determination necessary to either persevere or rise up against to the challenges to our faith. We are thankful that we can understand these matters of our faith, yet we are even more thankful that they are true, for when God is our Light and our Salvation, we have access to all joys and we can overcome all fears. I thank you for this opportunity to once again to affirm the truth of God that we both hold closely in our hearts, and pray that God may guide you with wisdom and love.