Zachary Byrn
Section 8
Free Will (Installment
#1)
Free
Will. What was the first thing that came to mind when you read those two words?
The ability to do anything you want? To think freely? To decide what to do with
your life without any outside interaction from anyone or anything else? Defined
by Merriam-Webster dictionary, free will is 1. the ability to choose how to act
and 2. the ability to make choices that are not controlled by fate or God. This
definition includes a pretty simple explanation along with a more in depth
definition that takes deeper thinking to understand. “..not controlled by fate
or God.” So it’s saying that there is an idea that fate or God controls the
outcome of every human being, from deciding to eat a bowl cereal instead of
toast and eggs for breakfast to even deciding what state a family decides to go
to for vacation, while also saying that there is an idea that all those
decisions are based solely on the natural thinking done by human beings. Well,
what do you think? I’ve chosen to expand on the topic of free will. This is a
subject that I have argued for years, whether that be with people who do not or
do believe in free will as a human.
Much of
my early teenager years I spent time in a Baptist church, which is known for
heavy Calvinistic views (essentially the idea that there is a certain group of
Christians that are already pre-destined by God to be sent to heaven, and that
every action or decision we make is pre-destined) that at first I didn’t know
whether to believe or not. Being surrounded by such influence from my peers to
understand and believe what they thought to be true was very difficult for me
to comprehend. I never considered myself to be either: free will or
pre-destination. What it took for me to finally straighten out the views that I
held to be true was a little maturing and growing up, letting myself develop my
own personal beliefs rather than basing them on the ideals that my peers had
and expressed so openly.
For me, free will does seem to mean that, as a
separate entity from anyone or anything else, I have the ability to make and do
whatever I so well please in this life, from deciding what I’m going to eat for
lunch or if I just up and decided to drive three states away, there is nothing
stopping me from doing those things. The opposing side, “pre-destinationists”,
if you will, believe that those actions that I may have thought I decided on my
own, were already planned out for me by God or some other higher being. I am
not bashing on God or Christianity, I mean come on, I claim to be a Christian
anyway, just with my own beliefs tied in.
A week late.
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