Free Will

Christian traditions among other, believe that all humans have free will and this free will is God-given, (i.e. God gave humans the ability and the free will to make their own decisions and choices).

For, without free will, humans could not be described as moral beings, as they will not have made the conscious choice to live and act in a moral way. Thus, seeing God's gift of free will not as a limitation, but His greatest gift to humanity, as free will frees us from being God's puppets and enables us to be His partners!

Plato believed that there is a constant battle with one's base desires. To achieve inner justice, an individual must liberate themselves from these impulses by acquiring the virtues of wisdom, courage, and temperance. Once an individual has mastered one's self, only then can that individual express free will.

Socrates' views that the unexamined life is not worth living, without the wisdom and will for self-control, which, for him requires reflection or a conscience, in other words, free will is impossible without self-control, for people without such aren’t capable of free will.

That said, free will is being able to do whatever action one decides, while, choice is the actions people end-up doing. The idea of choice is to do something, whereas, free will is having the ability or power to do something.

Philosophers and theologians for centuries have almost unanimously held that civilization as we know it depends on a widespread belief in free will, and that losing this belief could be calamitous.

There are many ways of unravelling the notions of free will and determinism, but a good place to begin is with two definitions: 1). Genuine free will is for at least some actions, a person’s ability to have done otherwise. 2). Determinism is when a person never has the ability to do otherwise. While not all philosophers agree on the definition of a “genuine free will,” it nevertheless offers one of the boldest conceptions of freedom.

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris argues that free will is an illusion. In his view, we are the mere conscious witnesses of decisions that deep in our brains have already been made. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over, which, we exert no conscious control. Simply put, we do not have the freedom we think we have.

At least since the Age of?Enlightenment, in the 18th century, one of the most central questions of human existence has been whether we have free will? A common and straightforward view is that, if our choices are predetermined, then we don't have free will; otherwise we do.

Free will, in humans, is the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints, a prominent feature of existentialism, a concept of radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice…

?Food for thought!