Free Heart
Free will is matter of capacity rather than ability. Yet what use is there for a will to be free if it cannot to do anything? Have we opened the door to one cage only to find ourselves within a larger cage? If true, that feels unfair. Sometimes more than unfair, even cruel. We may as well have remained in the first cage with no will at all, milling about like unfeeling robots, for all the difference it makes. Perhaps God is monstrous after all. Before addressing that issue directly, I wish to address the issue of feeling itself in order to make a particular point. Why is it that this feels unfair, and what does that feeling tell us about the nature of free will?
Imagine asking a child in an ice cream shop which flavor they should like to eat. "Chocolate," they reply, a fantastic grin spread across their face. "Too bad," says you, "have this bowl of spinach instead." The child, being subject to you, was evidently given a choice, but at just the moment where their choice was revealed, you destroyed it, presenting them with something entirely different, and far less desirable! This could be described as cruelty.
More than likely you yourself have known or experienced far more severe shapes of this illustration. Cruel authority figures. Catastrophic weather. Tragic accidents. Deadly diseases. My intent is in no way to minimize those experiences or diminish your feelings about them. Quite the contrary. My point is to emphasize precisely that these sorts of events make us feel very deeply, and that feeling is itself an expression of the persevering freedom of our will. Our continuing capacity for choice. It is exactly because these events seem to us cruel and unfair that we know our will remains free. The fire which burns against the wind of adversity. The spark which flies against the friction of fate. These are part and price for the being with free will.
Not all subversion of our will is a bad thing. Sometimes, either for ignorance or lack of imagination, we don't desire the best things. Our free will may settle for something small. Or even dangerous. A child's free will may lead him after a runaway toy towards a busy street. No one would consider the parent cruel for subverting that notion! Even the child, depending on the age, may come to realize that his will was wrong, and that the consequences for acting upon his will could have been devastating. Not all subversion of will is an ill.
This brings an interesting question of accountability. Suppose a person's will is subverted. His capacity for choice is bent on something, good or evil, but his will is subverted, and that good or bad thing he wished to do, he cannot. Is he still accountable? Does he still receive credit or blame? Is the thing which makes a deed right or wrong the deed itself, or the will that wished for it? The answer for me comes from the feeling. One who wishes to murder and rages when he cannot is no better off than one who wishes to murder and rejoices when he can. The wish is the first issue, and it is revealed by the feeling regardless of the outcome. The free will is that which ought to be held ultimately accountable.
And so we come to find that our feelings, which at first seemed to be an issue, become part of the solution. A reference to a clearer picture. Perhaps even, if I may suggest, the most important piece of this conversation entirely. Why? First, because our feelings themselves are the proof of a continuing free will even when we do not get what we want. Second, because our feelings reveal the deepest wishes of our hearts, whether we have had opportunity to act upon them or not. This is extremely useful information as we consider the relationship between our will and God's.
So the question that remains, then: What of the bigger cage? Have we merely traded constraints? Perhaps by now I have persuaded you that we have free will, that it is not compromised even when subverted, and that our feelings confirm this fact. But is our will ever left un-subverted? Are we able to give feet to our free will and let it walk? Can we make meaningful choices in the context of a God who can at any time do whatever He pleases? What are the constraints? We will explore these questions next.