Okay I will skip past all this philosophical exchange and just post an item which I wrote a few years ago. You will see that it is quite different in essence to what has been posted previously.
The Christians have it all worked out: God created a perfect world, and perfect "In the image of God" humans, but he gave us free will and we stuffed it all up. Well that conveniently answers everything, doesn't it. We can't blame God for pain, tragedy, war, environmental destruction and so on. He gave us a perfect world, and we blew it.
Well I have given the matter much thought and have concluded that most of our "free will" actions are nothing more than a matter of taking the path of least resistance given all the circumstances involved. When we are hungry, we eat; when we are thirsty, we drink; when we are tired, we rest; when our bladder is full, we relieve ourselves. Is there actually any free will involved in these basic examples of common human day-to-day experience? We don't think, we don't reason, we don't make a calculated decision; we just respond naturally to our body's demands.
We can apply this analogy to far more complex situations: a married couple find that they can no longer stand each other's company. So do they just walk away and start life anew? No, because financial considerations and responsibilities to offspring make up a much more complex equation. Eventually the couple will choose the course of action that causes the least stress to all involved, or in other words, the path of least resistance.
Anyone who takes the time to analyse the many "free will" decisions which they may make in a single day will soon see that, given all the circumstances involved, they are merely taking the path of least resistance.
However from time to time, and possibly even several times a day, we are faced with a choice of actions that are all of equal strength: there is no path of least resistance; a decision has to be made but it is impossible to choose between several equally compelling options.
And this, I believe, is where true free will comes into play: without knowing why, we randomly choose one of the competing options. I challenge anyone to present to me a scenario in which a conscious and deliberate choice can be made between multiple courses of action which are equally compelling. Is it a free will decision not to murder someone who has caused us intolerable stress? Probably not, because we weigh the alternatives of eliminating the source of our pain, with the probably consequence of spending many years in jail, as well as considering our conscience and deeply embedded social mores.
In every minute action we take each day our "choice" is predominantly determined by an amalgamation of our genes, upbringing, life experience, belief system, laws and so forth. I don't begin to understand the process that causes us to make a random choice when faced with no obvious preferred choice. But it is ONLY THIS PHENOMENON WHICH I WILL DIGNIFY WITH THE TITLE OF FREE WILL.
And now I would like to skip back to Genesis and try and make some sense out of the "free will" decision which is allegedly responsible for all the mayhem that has occurred from the inception of the human race.
Christians will no doubt be shocked and mortified by my declaration that the first great "leap of faith" made in the history of Christianity was the decision by Eve, and subsequently Adam, to risk death in order to acquire wisdom. " ... you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
Well we know that was a lie, don't we, or you wouldn't be reading this now. And if God was referring to a spiritual death as distinct from a physical death, then he didn't bother to clarify the issue. So when the serpent said: "You will not surely die ... when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil," Eve and Adam were faced with a decision which quite possibly meets my criteria for a free-will choice, as they had no foreknowledge on which to judge whether God or the serpent was telling the truth.
It is also an excellent example of that most admirable of human qualities: the willingness to risk death in the quest for knowledge.
But I reject the simplistic interpretation of this incident by the Christian Church. Obviously they would not have wilfully rebelled against God if they believed that by "death" he meant annihilation.
