Programming free will
Tuesday 16 February 2010 - Filed under Life Outside Work
I was listening to a sermon on the Internet and came to a small yet ground-breaking epiphany, which I can deeply relate to many of my own personal experiences and decisions. Here’s a well-known passage from the Book of Numbers in GNB, my favourite translation:
(13.30) Caleb silenced the people who were complaining against Moses, and said, “We should attack now and take the land; we are strong enough to conquer it.”
(v.31) But the men who had gone with Caleb said, “No, we are not strong enough to attack them; the people there are more powerful than we are.” So they spread a false report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, “That land doesn’t even produce enough to feed the people who live there. Everyone we saw was very tall, and we even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must have looked to them.”
(14.1) All night long the people cried out in distress. They complained against Moses and Aaron, and said, “It would have been better to die in Egypt or even here in the wilderness! Why is the LORD taking us into that land? We will be killed in battle, and our wives and children will be captured. Wouldn’t it be better to go back to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader and go back to Egypt!”
… (v.11) The LORD said to Moses, “How much longer will these people reject me? How much longer will they refuse to trust in me, even though I have performed so many miracles among them?”
… (v.26) The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “How much longer are these wicked people going to complain against me? I have heard enough of these complaints! Now give them this answer: ‘I swear that as surely as I live, I will do to you just what you have asked. I, the LORD, have spoken. You will die and your corpses will be scattered across this wilderness. Because you have complained against me, none of you over twenty years of age will enter that land.’”
Doing the right thing is certainly free will. Doing the opposite of the right thing is also free will. What is truly frightening, however, is that while people are given ample miracles, wonders, and warnings on the way (most of which they appreciate only in hindsight), God DOES NOT STOP those who are DETERMINED to do what they know is wrong.
Perhaps Numbers Chapter 14 can be paraphrased this way: All night long the people cried out in distress, “Awwww… why can’t you just PREVENT us poor souls from ever going astray, Loving-Caring-Compassionate-Always-Patient God?” The LORD said to Moses, “Now give them this answer: ‘That’s because I didn’t create you as bleepin’ robots.’”
Humans are not programmed to do the right thing. But they are programmed to learn (to do the right thing out of free will). Some do, some do eventually, and some don’t.
2010-02-16 » JK