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Free Will is an Illusion
1 Aug, 2006 | Filed Under Philosophy, Religion
“Free Will” is a man-made illusion that makes us believe we have some control over our lives on this earth. The truth is we don’t. Control is an illusion.
Generally, people believe and accept that God is Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent. If God is infinitely wise having total knowledge of everything and encompsasses time and space, then He already knows our past actions, our present situation and most especially what our own future will be… even before we were born:
Psalm 139 (New American Bible)
1 O LORD, you have probed me, you know me:
2 you know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar.
3 My travels and my rest you mark; with all my ways you are familiar.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, LORD, you know it all.
5 Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is beyond me, far too lofty for me to reach.
15 When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.
Therefore, everything has been laid out in our lives, planned, pre-determined and fixed – even before we were born. “Free Choice” or “Free Will” are mere terms that simply give us a false sense of control or power over our destiny or our future RELATIVE to a future unknown to us. But from God’s perspective where there is no such thing as past, present or future. He already knows, has planned and has even pre-determined the outcome to everything in our lives and in this world including all the choices we will be making – good and bad.
Otherwise, if God gave us “power” or the “free will” to choose, then this contradicts his omniscience, ie God would not know what choices we would be making because our choices haven’t been made yet. They would only be known to us – and to God – when we actually make them.
The Error of Free Will
(an excerpt from Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols)
Free Will is the psychology of making one responsible for their actions.
The doctrine of the will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is, to assign, charge, lay, blame, and cast guilt on an individual. Becoming has been deprived of its innocence when all actions is traced back to “will” – to acts of responsibility.
The psychology and concept of “free will” was created and conditioned by priests and the early Christian church, to create for themselves the right to punish – or wanted to create this right for God. Men were considered “free” so that they might be judged and punished – so that they might become guilty: consequently, every act had to be considered
as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered lying within the consciousness.