Please bear with me Nigeria
But first, let me thoroughly thrash the issue on choices. I
began by imploring us to seek to make informed choices and waded into the
likely reason for our current religious choice, a reason which I think is quite
warped.
And then, I touched on the God of the Hebrews who has been
inherited as the God of the major religions – a God who governs our day to day
lives with rules; ten commandments for Christians and whatever else it is for
Muslims.
Since this God has also made clear that there will be reward
for those who stick to the rules and punishment for those who do not, I’d like
to dwell a little on the logic of choices.
A lot of Christians and, perhaps, religious people might be
acquainted with the notion of freewill, a quality of all humans. As a matter of
fact, this freewill was supposed to have been in play when Adam and Eve (by
Christian tradition) chose to disobey God and eat of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil. We will visit this whole story in its literal and metaphorical
interpretations later.
Anyway, this is how God set the stage; humans have got
freewill, freedom to choose between good and evil – in other words, God’s laws
or their own. Whatever choice they make bears its consequences; in fact, the
bible clearly states ‘I have set before you life and death. Choose life
therefore and live.’ Again, please don’t expect my biblical excerpts to be all
set out nicely; this is not a bible study article.
Now, let’s analyse freewill. ‘Will’ refers to the rational
ability to make a choice; ‘Free’ refers to freedom from any retribution or
reward for that choice from an outside party.
By the logic of choices, therefore, a choice really given to
freedom cannot have its consequences outside the choice itself. I’ll explain
more clearly.
If I cruelly allow my child the freedom to choose between
playing with that sharp knife he loves or that rubber ball he is bored with. I
am really saying, ‘I wash my hands off you here; whatever you reap from your
choice is your problem.’
I call this cruel because parents, until their children are
old enough to lead their own independent lives, are not supposed to give them
freedom of choice even though the kids get to possess full powers of will from
about the age of seven or eight.
So, parents are more likely to say; ‘You are free to choose
between doing what I say which is not to go out after 7pm or not. But if you
disobey my rules, there’ll be hell to pay.’ That hell is two-fold; one from the
act itself as the child might encounter some danger if they went out after dark
and from the parents who would exact severe punishment. Sounds familiar? Yes,
this second set of options sounds quite like those offered by the biblical God;
it is not a really free choice.
Free choices must find their consequences within the choices
themselves, for instance, the child cuts himself with the sharp knife or has a
boring but safe play with the rubber ball. Or better still, in a democratic
election, people should reap the consequences of their vote from the conduct of
the elected rather than from a terrorist gang who punish or reward them for
their choices.
Once the consequences arise from outside the action like
from the parents punishing the child or from God sending people to hell, it
ceases to be a free choice.
So there is really no freewill in religion. There is will,
no doubt but it is meant to be directed without question at an already
determined path carved out by the God of that religion.
Now, if will is not free, it is not really will, is it? If I
have the ability to choose but I can’t really choose freely but, instead, am
expected to pick what has already been chosen as the way by God or face his
wrath in hell, then I don’t really have the ability to choose, do I? In
essence, I am not really living and acting in a fully human capacity since I
lack freewill.
No comments:
Post a Comment