Christianity and the Meaning of Life

[christian_soldier]

:-D

 

[Drew]

Psalm 37:23 in the NASB:

The steps of a man are established by the LORD,
And He delights in his way

This certainly does sound like a statement to the effect that God exerts substantial, and possibly total, control over the will of man.

Here is the same text in the NIV:

If the LORD delights in a man's way,
he makes his steps firm

A very different statement it would seem and one that would seem to be far less suggestive of God's complete control over the will of man.

Now to be fair, I have been led to believe that the NASB is a more "accurate" translation than the NIV.

So let's go with the NASB. Consider also Proverbs 16:9 also in the NASB:

The mind of man plans his way,
But the LORD directs his steps

This text certainly seems to draw a strong separation between the acts of men (planning the way) and the acts of God (directing the man's steps). Things are therefore not as "simple" as they are represented as being.

Both texts agree strongly imply (on a "plain / literal" basis) that the "steps" of men are controlled by God. The Proverbs 16:9 text seems equally to suggest that man acts as an agent somewhat disconnected from God - the use of the term "but" seems to underscore this distinction.

Can it be claimed that the "mind of man" as expressed in Proverbs 16:9 is really under the control of God and therefore not at all "free"? Of course, this can be claimed.

However, once one does this - once one opens the door to a reading that trumps the "common-sense / plain / literal" meaning - then one has to open that door in respect to all texts. One cannot simply claim that Psalm 37:23 (as rendered in the NASB) supports God's full determination because its plain wording states "The steps of a man are established by the LORD".

 

[Drew]

My first effort at expressing what I mean when I refer to human free will.

As anyone reading this and other threads will know, I do believe that God does indeed manipulate free at specific times and for specific purposes.

However, I do indeed believe that man's will is at least partially free.

To say that a human being exercises some free will in respect to some action or decision "X" is to say that X has both the following properties:

1. X is not fully determined by forces "outside" the man (such as God or the wind or sensory stimuli, etc).

2. X is not fully determined by the laws of physics acting in an "undirected" or "impersonal" manner in the brain of the person who does X.

This is definition by exclusion - suggesting that there is some "decision-making" feature of the human person that is "left over" once the contributions of 1 and 2 are subtracted out.

Expressed somewhat differently, I would say that humans have free will in the sense that there is an "aspect" of the human person that "floats free" of the determining effects of God and / or the laws of physics.

Admittedly, those of us with a certain degree of grounding in the physical sciences find it difficult to imagine that any decision of any being in the universe can "float free" in this way - we are used to thinking that every event has a physically determined cause. Fair enough. But presumably we all agree that God has free will in the sense that His decisions are "truly His own" and are not fully caused by something "outside" of God.

I submit that if we accept this mystery, there is no reason to object to the coherence of the notion that man also has at least some of this "free floating" free will.